La globalización desfigurada o la postglobalización imaginada: La estética cyberpunk (post)mexicana

Abstract

In my dissertation I propose an analysis of technology from a literary and cultural studies perspective. This allows me to establish a theoretical framework through which to observe the process of globalization in Mexico from a new perspective: the circulation of technology as a catalyst of neoliberal reform. I argue that Mexican cyberpunk, as a subgenre of science fiction, challenges national paradigms about modernization, economic progress, and capitalism at the end of the 20th century in Mexico. Furthermore, I propose that Mexican cyberpunk articulates a new counterculture identity as a reaction against official proclamations of Mexico entering into the 21st century as a developed, modern, and global nation. I use literary, visual, and performance texts to observe how writers, video artists, and performance artists portray images of Mexico in chaos and ruins through the disenchanted view of the hacker character. I argue that sophisticated users of technology, in cyberpunk narrative and other forms of cultural production, offer a singular insight to analyze technology as power since hackers draw all their knowledge, strategies, and tools from the system in which they operate. I use the hacker character as a metaphor to illustrate the contradictions between high-tech modernity and underdevelopment in Mexico during the information age.