DISRUPTING THE (POST) NEOLIBERAL ORDER IN LATIN AMERICA THROUGH THE REPRESENTATION OF FICTIONAL CORPORATE OFFICE NARRATIVES IN ARGENTINA AND MEXICO (2007-2010)

Author

Juliana Todescan, University of New MexicoFollow

Publication Date

Summer 7-12-2021

Abstract

Due to the expansion of the neoliberal and global order in Latin America in the 1990s, national states and citizens are subjected to the free market interests regulated and managed by for profit corporations and the financial industry. Considering this a critical change in the social organization of Latin America, I compare narratives from Argentina and Mexico that imagine cosmopolitan cities being colonized by the corporate logic of profit. My analysis focuses on the representation of low level office workers in Antonio Ortuño’s novel Recursos humanos (2007), Guillermo Saccomanno’s novel El oficinista (2010), and Aníbal Jarkowski’s El trabajo (2007), and on dystopian representations of a corporate future in three narratives by Bernardo Fernández (Bef): Ladrón de sueños (2008), Gel Azul (2009) and El estruendo del silencio (2009). As a result, I develop the concept of corp(us) logic as a literary corpus that represents a dystopian corporate office setting that disrupts the legitimization of the (post) neoliberal doctrine in Latin America in the early 2000s. While these narratives may not offer solutions, they do point to root causes of social problems, showing how the neoliberal state that empowers corporations also reproduces 1) the disposability of the workers; 2) underemployment, hostile work environments, unfair wages and reduced benefits with diminished opportunities for union representation; 3) limited forms of individual or collective resistance; 4) an oligarchy of rich white men; and 5) an increase in social anomie that may lead to micro and/or macro forms of aggression toward the self and/or others.

Degree Name

Spanish & Portuguese (PhD)

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Spanish and Portuguese

First Committee Member (Chair)

Kimberle Lopez

Second Committee Member

Miguel Lopez

Third Committee Member

Santiago Vaquera-Vasquez

Fourth Committee Member

Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott

Language

English

Keywords

Science-Fiction in Latin America, anomie, dystopia, abject, Pink Tide, NAFTA

Document Type

Dissertation

Recommended Citation

Todescan, Juliana. "DISRUPTING THE (POST) NEOLIBERAL ORDER IN LATIN AMERICA THROUGH THE REPRESENTATION OF FICTIONAL CORPORATE OFFICE NARRATIVES IN ARGENTINA AND MEXICO (2007-2010)." (2021). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/span_etds/142