Fictions of Labor: Global Capitalism and Embodied Knowledge in Andean Arts and Literature

This dissertation examines twentieth and twenty-first century cultural forms from the Andes that transcend prevailing understandings of labor under global capitalism in terms of mechanization of and alienation from the body. Focusing on literature, visual arts, and performance from Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, this project highlights fictions of labor that foreground an attuned sensitivity to human and other-than-human bodies. These cultural materials refuse dominant linear views of capitalist development and expose the rather-flexible articulation of capitalism with local knowledge and practices. Their interweaving of apparently incompatible economies reveals a plurality of multifaceted labor forms that subscribe to being attuned to the socio-natural surroundings, notwithstanding power imbalances. I argue that these Andean approaches to labor offer alternative geographies where multiple times converge, and different life forms come together.This project maps the interrelations of labor and bodies along three axes: space, machines, and time. Chapter One argues that explorations of alternative labor forms rethink space beyond a surface on which we act. In these fictions of labor, the places where labor is performed, whether it is pasture lands or mines, are portrayed as living systems where different life forms interact. Thus, navigating these dynamic and shifting landscapes requires a repertoire of tactics and networks that are continually being readjusted. For instance, in Manuel Scorza’s novel Redoble por Rancas (1970), by moving through the landscape and remembering with it, members of a community of shepherds resist processes of physical and social enclosure propelled by a mining company. Similarly, the interventions of the local population on Vania Caro Melo’s and Milagros Tejerina’s embroidered map of Tilcara, Argentina, titled 10.25’ reveal alternative spatialities that challenge the organization of the land and bodies within it by the dominant tourism industry. Chapter Two explores the role of machines in these living landscapes where laboring bodies come together. While machines can be integrated into these assemblages of life forms, these fictions of labor criticize them for disregarding pre-existing relationships between humans and other-than-humans. Moreover, these cultural forms challenge the “technological sublime”--the sense of awe over technological advancements--by foregrounding local knowledge and practices, and unveiling the labor involved in building and handling machines. For instance, in Enrique Gil Gilbert’s novel Nuestro pan (1942), the tractor is a sudden, shocking intruder in a landscape where, despite tensions, diverse entities engage in conversations to regenerate life. In Karina Aguilera Skvirsky’s photo series The Railroad Workers (2016), the train, which we may assume would be one of the protagonists, is mostly absent. By juxtaposing early-twentieth century photographs of railroad workers and contemporary images of the landscape the train passes by, she counters the invisibilization of the labor that makes technology possible in the first place. Chapter Three focuses on the simultaneity of diverse economies, that is, the combination of neoliberal capitalism with labor forms considered to be archaic and pre-modern, such as the cargador trade. In his short story “El cementerio de elefantes” (2008)--a science fiction rewriting of Jaime Saenz’ texts “El aparapita de La Paz” (1972) and Imágenes paceñas. Lugares y personas de la ciudad (1979)--Miguel Esquirol Ríos points out that the cargador is a key piece in the workings of neoliberalism. Without cargadores loading and unloading trucks, the economic activity of markets where millions of dollars circulate, such as Feria 16 de julio in El Alto, Bolivia, would not be possible. Despite the futuristic setting in “El cementerio de elefantes,” cargadores are still the only ones capable of navigating the ever-changing geography of the marketplace thanks to their embodied knowledge. This chapter also discusses writing in the story as an embodied practice not so different from other manual labor such as the cargador trade. A final epilogue reflects on the tensions and antagonisms found in alternative forms of labor, as exemplified in the annual renewal of the handwoven Q’eswachaka bridge in Quehue, Cusco, Peru. While these Andean approaches to labor expose gray areas where cooperation and interdependence coexist with exploitation and oppression, they reveal other ways of being in the world beyond capitalist economies and social relations.

Advisor: Tarica, Estelle