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Caitlin’s response 3/17 – Biutiful Barcelona

In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, the role of the city of Barcelona is of primary importance in the film, second only perhaps to the protagonist Uxbal, played by Javier Bardem. Arguably, the character and plot cannot be extracted from this specific urban space. Barcelona, one of the most visited European cities, suffers from the very same picturesque image it propagates. While many films (and certainly a number of other artistic mediums) portray Catalonia’s capital from the point of view of the tourists who come to see its architectural glory, famous landmarks and swarming beaches, Biutiful, both technically and thematically, insists on the portrayal of the Barcelona of the marginalized.

The filming techniques throughout the film underline this marginalized side of the city as experienced by its immigrant population. Barcelona is rarely portrayed as a panoramic whole, and in the few shots that are positioned from an elevated view allowing this panorama, the city is shown at nighttime or under cloud cover, obscuring views of the Mediterranean and draping the architecture in a drab and depressing ambience. Additionally, the panoramic shots concentrate more often on buildings under construction than on fully finished architectural triumphs. Our vision of the skyline is consistently cluttered with cranes and never allows us liberating views of the expansive space that we would expect from a Mediterranean cityscape. The few picturesque images of the city are captured at the beginning of a shot that pans to a reality which disrupts our initial reaction to the image. The view of the Sagrada Familia and the Torre Agbar (under a clouded sky) are slowly relegated to the view out of the hospital window as Uxbar receives his cancer treatment. When we finally are able to see the horizon of the Mediterranean, a similar pan is used to reveal the corpses of the Chinese workers as they float ashore in the foreground of the infamous Barceloneta and its gleaming architecture. Thus the celebrated cityscape is used as a backdrop to harsh human realities that are more often hidden behind its gleaming façade.

Although it uses a different filmic strategy, the effect of the police chase through the Ramblas can be seen as a similar effort to disrupt the idealized image of the city held by a privileged, largely tourist population. The areal view of the Plaça de Catalunya is quickly shattered into fragmented pieces when the police begin to chase the illegal street vendors around the boundaries of the plaça. The shots are interrupted by frequent cuts between perspectives from inside the moving police cars, shots from the plaça following the chase circulating around it, and moving shots with handheld cameras following the persecuted men. These frequent moving, disrupted and disrupting shots make their way into Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s infamous street which has turned into one of its greatest tourist attractions. Yet again, the initial view of the majestic, tree-lined pedestrian fairway is cut apart into running shots, obscured views, and frequent cuts as the camera follows characters down narrow off-streets in their effort to escape.

In addition to these disrupted panoramas, the majority of the shots are filmed in closed, dark, cramped spaces that better represent Barcelona as known to the film’s protagonists than the propagated postcard images of its open tourist spaces. The basement that houses the Chinese immigrants, the low-ceilinged, seemingly temporary housing of the African street vendors and their families, and even the more spacious but decaying apartment of the protagonist and his family are the most frequent settings of the movie. The frequent use of these external contexts construct boundaries between the “outside” world of the rich tourist city and the inside, or perhaps “underside”, that, while frequently contained in these tight spaces, occasionally spills out. The shots and filming techniques used to construct the visual narrative of Biutiful can thus be seen as an effort to problematize a dominant view of Barcelona and to fully represent the city’s marginalized spaces and inhabitants.

Charlie’s critique of Morton: phenomenology and the ephemeral self

Hey folks, what follows is an explanation of one aspect of Morton’s argumentative style that I took issue with. Given the space constraints (two pages is a tough goal), I focused on my critique and not on how I think Morton’s work can be very useful. There’s some good stuff in his writing and hyperobjects brings up good questions that I’m excited to talk through in class. I just offer that caveat because I fear this response will read as being dismissive of him.

Thanks!

Charlie

In Timoty Morton’s book, Hyperobjects: philosophy and ecology after the end of the world, and in his essay, Queer Ecology, he argues for an understanding of nature, ecology, and the place of ‘the human’ in the world that Morton claims is a significant departure from previous theorizing. In Hyperobjects, Morton writes that his work necessitates a style of thinking “in which the normal certainties are inverted, or even dissolved. No longer are my intimate impressions “personal”…they are footprints of hyperobjects” (p. 5). Through this statement, he argues that the human subject is not a disembodied consciousness standing apart from the world but is created through its relationships and that hyperobjects leave their imprint on the human subject. He also challenges what he understands correlationalism to be: “the refrigerator itself, let alone the light inside it, only exists when I am there to open the door” (p. 13). He argues that hyperobjects exist whether or not we perceive them and that they exceed the human capacity to perceive them as phenomena. We are no longer “embedded” in a world, rather we are encompassed by these hyperobjects that surpass any human world.

Morton establishes the novelty of his claims through these sweeping criticisms of phenomenology. While one sympathetic review (http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/hyperobjects) claims that Morton is “sampling” from philosophy, not “doing philosophy,” I want to push back against his sampling. Morton mischaracterizes phenomenology, apparently to exaggerate the novelty of his own claims. I turn to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology to respond to some of Morton’s statements. Merleau-Ponty followed Heiddeger’s project of trying to understand Being, the human experience of life. He is best known for drawing attention to the body, but his work also clearly articulated how the human self is a transient phenomenon that is continuously made and remade.

Morton’s critiques of phenomenology wrongly assume that the “I,” the subject for phenomenology, is a contained “for-itself.” In continental philosophy, the “for-itself” refers to a pure constituting consciousness such as the one Descartes is caricatured as producing. The for-itself is a disembodied consciousness, a mind, that exists apart from the world and can behold objects. The “in-itself” then refers to the object itself, a discrete entity bounded by space and time. This contrast assumes that the subject and the object are two discrete things that do not overlap, and this appears to be how Morton is characterizing the subject for phenomenology.

However, if we turn to Merleau-Ponty, we see that he argues that the subject and object alike arise out of perceptual experience. For example, he writes, “If there is for me a cube with six equal faces and if I can indeed meet up with the object, this is not because I constitute it from within, but rather because through perceptual experience I plunge into the thickness of the world” (PhP p. 211). The cube becomes a cube for him in the act of perception, in meeting up with it in the world. Phenomenology actually makes no claim about the object ‘in-itself,’ phenomenology is instead concerned with how it becomes an object for a subject, how it comes to mean something in their world. Further, the “I” also comes to be in this encounter. Again, from Merleau-Ponty:

“Myself as the one contemplating the blue of the sky is not an acosmic subject standing before it, I do not possess it in thought, I do not lay out in front of it an idea of blue that would give me its secret. Rather, I abandon myself to it, I plunge into this mystery, and it “thinks itself in me.” I am this sky that gather together, composes itself, and begins to exist for itself, my consciousness is saturated by this unlimited blue” (PhP p. 222).

He then ends the paragraph by saying that “I” am “a hollow, or a fold that was made and than can be unmade” (p. 223).

Let’s make sense of these two dense quotations. First, Merleau-Ponty claims that both subject and object are abstractions, the product of perceptual experience. One comes to have a sense of self and other through the experience of being-in-the-world, through living life. Whereas correlationism as Morton would have it presupposes constituted subjects perceiving objects through the data of sensory experience, Merleau-Ponty’s claim is that this is not the character of life itself, but they are instead products of our efforts to make sense of the world, to derive meaning from our perceptual experience.

As I walk across campus, there are many things of which I am not aware of, that do not really exist for me. I can imagine that the grass on Bascom is made up of many different plant and animal species, but the lawn generally exists for me only as a lawn, as a sitting place or as a lying in the sun place. However, as I cross Charter Street on my way to class, I am acutely aware of the pedestrians, cyclists, cars, and buses that make their way through the intersection in a seemingly chaotic manner. Cars for me become fast cars, careless cars, considerate cars that stop for me. They have meaning for me because, in order for me to make my way across the intersection, I have to navigate their various trajectories and anticipate their actions. Many more objects come to exist meaningfully for me in that intersection than in the ecosystem that is Bascom hill.

This is a metaphysical claim, not an empirical claim. It does not say anything about the objects “in-themselves.” It makes no claim about what species of turf grass live on Bascom nor does it make an empirical claim about who or what is on Charter St at a given moment. Rather, it is a claim about how they come to have significance for me, how I come to see them, take note of them, and how they contribute to producing a sense of who I am in the world. This is not a representational claim, as Morton would have it, but it is a world making claim. It addresses the questions, how do I experience life, what do I see as significant, how does this impact how I experience myself and others, and what kind of judgements do I make? Throughout this entire process, “I” am unfolding, “I” am produced by the process. The “I” is never static, it is a verb. While Merleau-Ponty articulates this more clearly than Heidegger, and he draws more attention to the embodiment at work in the process, it is very much in the Heideggerean tradition that Morton claims to be criticizing.

The correlationalism charges that Morton levels therefore miss their mark. The phenomenological tradition does not draw on an understanding of our experience of the world as a correlation mediated by sense data. We don’t take pictures of the world and then represent them in our head to understand the world. In its most simple sense, Morton’s picture perhaps aligns with Kant’s understanding of how a consciousness represents its world, but to then level that same critique at the phenomenological tradition through Heiddeger is mistaken.

The idea of hyperobjects may indeed be valuable. Morton takes on the important question of how to understand and experience a process that happens on many scales. How can something be local and global at the same time? A process like global warming poses significant challenges for an approach that is prejudiced by that scalar hierarchy. Hyperobjects also raise the important question of how to confront a process that is both human created and far beyond control? The anthropocene is very much about the anthropos but we may be limited in our capacity to do much about it. However, by “sampling” philosophy in a way that mischaracterizes previous efforts, Morton undercuts his own and overplays the novelty of what object oriented ontologies can offer.

Charles’ reflection on De La Cadena

De la Cadena response
Marisol de la Cadena’s article, “Indigenous Cosmopolitics,” offers a brilliant extension of the work on “multinaturalism” offered by Vivieros de Castro and Latour, putting their work into conversation with Isabelle Stengers to explore the implications of a multinatural politics. Rather than framing indigenous politics in terms of multiculturalism or belief, De la Cadena instead argues that they should be understood as speaking from a different world than their mestizo counterparts. While the multiple worlds can be in conversation with one another, they should not be thought of as either equivalent or reducible to a single nature, a unified physical world. Using Andean political struggles over resource extraction as her empirical base, De La Cadena demonstrates how self-identified indigenous activists have successfully enrolled “earth-beings” such as mountains or rivers as political actors in their struggles.

One of the contributions of Indigenous Cosmopolitics is that it begins to reframe indigeneity. Postcolonial critiques often point out that indigeneity, as a signifier or as a category of being, comes to have meaning in terms of its contrast to the dominant culture. This tends to lock indigenous identity into a static past, resisting the acculturation of colonialists. If Westerners are secular, indigenous are spiritual, Westerners are aligned with culture while indigenous people come to be seen as closer to nature. This flattens indigenous identity, denies it dynamism, and locks it into an oppositional relationship with its colonial others.

Instead, De la Cadena makes use of contributions by Marilyn Strathern and Eduardo Vivieros de Castro to demonstrate how Andean indigenous activists can both enter politics on their own terms and engage in political struggles across worlds that do not neatly match up. First, she introduces Strathern’s idea of “partial connection.” Partial connection “refers to a relationship composing an aggregate that is “neither singular nor plural, neither one nor many, a circuit of connections rather than joint parts” (2004:54). Partial connections create no single entity; the entity that results is more than one, yet less than two” (p. 347). Second, she makes use of Vivieros de Castro’s idea of “equivocation.” Different actors in a struggle may use some of the same key words, but they do not necessarily refer to the same thing. For a Western environmentalist, a mountain may refer to a physical thing composed of rocks and plants, which forms the beginning of a watershed. For Mariano and Nazario Turpo, the Peruvian ritual specialist with whom De La Cadena worked, the mountain was alive, a being in its own right. While they may have worked with environmental groups to protect the mountain, using the language of western environmentalists, they were still, in important ways, referring to different mountains.

Using these concepts, I think one of De la Cadena’s important contributions is to point out how syncretism, usually associated with religion, also applies to politics. It allows for an understanding of indigenous politics as strategic, dynamic, and capable of speaking with Western worldviews while not being subsumed by them. It allows her to push past understandings of indigeneity that insist on static, ‘traditional,’ values or cultural interpretations that may respect their beliefs but still undermine their veracity.

These two concepts may be helpful in my own research into rites of passage ceremonies. I work with an organization, The School of Lost Borders, whose members work to reinterpret and reintroduce ‘traditional’ ceremonies such as the vision fast to contemporary American and European culture. The work is often one of translation. Lakota and Cheyenne practices and knowledge are put into conversation with Jungian psychology and the American wilderness tradition. Participants in their programs learn to engage the land and nonhuman others as intentional beings in their own right who may participate in the psychological lives of humans in meaningful ways. In some ways, it is an attempt to adopt what is often thought of as an “indigenous” worldview, a way of inhabiting a world full of “earth-beings.” Participants sometimes struggle with self-conscious doubts about the process, wondering if they are simply projecting internal processes onto an inanimate external world. Critics have charged that these ceremonies are an act of cultural appropriation, an act of further colonization.

While it’s important to consider these concerns, I wonder if the work of organizations like The School of Lost Borders may be better understood as working to negotiate equivocations and to foster partial connections. Just as De La Cadena seeks to “slow down reasoning,” these experiments in inhabiting the world in an animist fashion may be thought of as efforts to nurture partial connections between worlds, to inhabit a different world. De la Cadena wrote that she and Nazario could never inhabit the same world, but that they could ally with each other and fight for causes there are important to both of them. I worry that this assertion is limiting. She is dismissive of “new agers” interested in shamanism, but I think this forecloses on the possibility of learning to appreciate and inhabit multiple worlds. Experiences like the vision fast ceremony may offer poignant felt experiences of earth beings that facilitate the translation of equivocations. Stathern’s partial connections demonstrate that the gulf between worlds is not insurmountable. Connections may be nourished while also allowing that the subsumption of one world into another is neither possible nor desirable.

-Charles Carlin

Otherness in Nunca pasa nada

The themes that manifest in Nunca pasa nada reflect our contemporary globalized reality and the notion the value of humanity is put into question. The narrative, which takes place in the suburbs of Madrid, centers upon the untraditional marriage between Nico and Carmela, and their relationship with Olivia, their Ecuadorian housekeeper. Hired to care for their child, Berta, and to look after the house, Olivia must repay the debt she incurred when moving to Spain in search of employment. A discourse surrounding the strong dialogical relationship between Global North and Global South manifests thematically throughout the novel. I found the way Ovejero portrays the Latina protagonists to vacillate between standard Spanish stereotypes of Latin Americans and a true representation of the immigrant condition and struggle. Olivia’s housemates reflect this clichéd and pejorative representation of the seductive exotic Latina; often Ovejero situates Jenny and Carla in discotecs drinking and dancing to salsa and reggetón with Spanish men. This hypersexualized vision of the Latina immigrant is reinforced by Julián, who suggests the women use their sexuality and exotic identity to prostitute themselves to repay their debts: “[Olivia] tendría que haberle preguntado a Jenny. Ella se había hecho dos plazas de tres semanas cada una, y sólo con eso había podido pagar la deuda e incluso ahorrar. Seis semanas de poner el culo y ya está: libre como un pájaro” Ovejero (287). This vision of the Latin American woman as the exotic Other reflects a colonial discourse of domination and contemporary enslavement at the hands the powerful masculine identity.

Similarly, the themes of racism and xenophobia are woven through the novel. I argue that Claudio serves as a true voice of the other protagonists´ subconscious; the blatant racism he projects when referring to Olivia and the notion of Otherness is similarly reflected in the actions—while with more subtlety—of the novel´s Spanish protagonists. In a conversation Claudio has with his mother about what will make him a respectful and agreeable child, he responds without pause “La criada de Nico. Dile [a mi padre] que me regale la criada de Nico y tendrá un hijo que respetará sus canas y lo honrará más allá de lo que exige el cuarto mandamiento. … [Ella] no será muy cara” (Ovejero 162). Claudio´s polemic behavior in the novel concerning the idea of otherness serves as a commentary regarding the devalued condition and disposability of the Latin American immigrant.

Similarly, Nico´s sexually predatory behavior toward Olivia, along with the fact he employs her as an undocumented immigrant without a proper work visa and insurance effectively demonstrates the undervalued nature and exploited condition of the Latina immigrant. As the dominant masculine employer and financial key to Olivia´s mother´s health, Nico exploits Olivia, who, while uncomfortable with the sexual nature of their relationship, feels she is indebted to his generosity. While Nico is attracted to Olivia, appears to view her through a lens of inferiority and, therefore, as a disposable commodity for consumption. This is precisely exhibited in a conversation through the matter-of-fact emotionless manner he describes Olivia´s death in a conversation Nico has with the school´s director of studies: “´Nuestra asistenta ha tenido un accidente, ha muerto. En fin. Es un horror. Tenía diecinueve años.´ No le pareció que ninguno de los dos reaccionase debidamente a la noticia. No esperaba que le dieran el pésame, pero desde luego sí que mostraran algo de interés, aunque fuese por mera cortesía Se limitaron a mirarlo en silencio como a un alumno que tiene que dar cuenta a alguna infracción” (Ovejero 279). The reader notices that Nico exhibits more concern over the death of Laika, the family dog, than the death of the housekeeper who looks after his home and child. Ultimately, I found Ovejero’s representation of Otherness in Nunca pasa nada to be both compelling and unsettling, as it shifts between a true representation of the harsh reality of the immigrant condition and standard and biased stereotypes applied to Latina immigrants. It makes the reader consider a sector of the population created by our contemporary globalized reality that is often profoundly undervalued.

La extensión de la “deuda ecológica” en Nunca pasa nada.

En la novela de José Ovejero, Nunca pasa nada, con el desarrollo del argumento se esclarece el tema sobre la deuda ecológica hasta llegar a un punto en donde guía el cause de la acción. Olivia, al revelar que su madre padece de cáncer, enfermedad que la está matando, debe migrar de Coca, Ecuador para poder sustentar económicamente el tratamiento medico. Es desde este acontecimiento que la novela desarrolla toda su acción, es el motor que lleva a Olivia a vivir la experiencia que se cuenta.
Observando el núcleo de la acción, es posible asumir que la enfermedad de la madre de Olivia se debe a la indebida explotación de recursos naturales en el Ecuador, en este caso el petróleo. Tal como es visto en el documental Crude, el que exhibe un caso similar en Bolivia, los seres humanos que viven en las inmediaciones de los centros de explotaciones terminan literalmente envenenados por el mal procesamiento de los desechos.
La novela de Ovejero lleva la deuda ecológica a un plano más elevado, extendiendo el problema a otra dimensión, enlazando otros problemas sociales que van a nacer de la deuda ecológica. Si se piensa en el porque de la migración por parte de Olivia hacia España podemos deducir que la empresa petrolera es la causante. Olivia no desea estar en España, es más, su vivir se basa en el anhelo y añoranza de su pasado en Coca, Ecuador: “A Olivia le gustaba esa sensación de estar el campo, de no ver otros edificios… desde la casa o desde el jardín se podía alimentar esa ilusión de estar en el campo…” (16) El desplazamiento geográfico de esta mujer se debe a su obligación por mantener económicamente a su familia. La inmigración y por ende, el rompimiento de la estructura familiar, son efectos de esta deuda ecológica.
Irónicamente, en el lado opuesto de la moneda, tenemos las experiencias de vida de Carmela y Nico en un país desarrollado. Carmela es una mujer independiente a pesar de estar casada y tener una hija. En su concepción, concibe a una hija por dar en gusto a su esposo y no por una decisión del todo suya. Entiende la responsabilidad de traer un hijo al mundo, es “un lugar muy inhóspito para obligar a un niño nacer en el.” (88) En la posición privilegiada dentro de una nación desarrollada, ella tiene la voluntad de elegir, conoce las desventajas de lo que es crecer en la tierra en medio de una “catástrofe ecológica” (88) a diferencia de Olivia y su madre que deben adaptarse como victimas al ambiente que se les impone.
Siguiendo esta misma línea, podemos conectar esta observación con una de las ideas centrales del articulo de Riechman “Economía ecológica.” En su crítica hacia el ‘informe Brundlant’ descalifica la concepción de ‘desarrollo sostenible’ que éste presenta. Su reformulación de desarrollo sostenible se basa en la redistribución de lo que ya está producido y una explotación futura que satisfaga las necesidades y aspiraciones humanas (7). La producción indebida lleva a la destrucción de las naciones subdesarrolladas. En el caso de la novela, la situación de Coca, Ecuador, trata un marco opositor a la idea de ‘desarrollo sostenible’ que Riechman sostiene al ser un escenario que expone el resultado negativo del informe Brundlant. La sobreproducción está destruyendo una sociedad y enriqueciendo a otra igualitariamente. Como dice Richman, no está siendo un desarrollo “socialmente justo, ecológicamente compatible y económicamente viable.” (3)

La deuda socio-económica en Nunca pasa nada (Emma’s Response)

La novela Nunca pasa nada de José Ovejero nos presenta con una serie de personajes con  relaciones inconexas y casi caricaturizadas que ofrecen un “caso práctico” para considerar la idea de las deudas que van más allá de lo puramente económico. A lo largo de la novela, cuestiones de dinero y vida se mezclan dentro de estas relaciones y nos hacen cuestionar la moralidad de una ideología que intenta cuantificar el valor de los seres vivos (pensamos en el “songbird” de Funtowicz). En especial, el caso de Olivia nos da una oportunidad perfecta para considerar las deudas extra-económicas que un país como España puede deber a otro menos privilegiado bajo un sistema de justica económica alternativo. Pensando en términos de los economistas ecológicos, por ejemplo, podemos ver que en un mundo capitalista, aunque casi todas las cosas parecen existir bajo un sistema económico, hay valores que no caben dentro de lo monetario. ¿Qué hacemos, luego, con esas deudas extra-económicas?

Si intentamos cuantificar la importancia de la vida de Olivia, vemos que tiene un valor diferente para cada personaje con que interactúa. Parece un método inmoral, pero si tratamos la muerte de ella como un evento que crea una deuda que alguien tiene que pagar (y así lo es como vemos al final: la deuda se transfiere de Olivia a la familia de Nico y Carmela) vemos que esa deuda no simplemente trataría de dinero. Según el modelo del sargento de la policía, Olivia tiene un valor potencial de cientos de miles de euros. Para Nico, entonces, Olivia tiene ese valor monetario junto con un valor emocional. Para Carmela, Olivia vale una niñera y cierta porción de la felicidad de Berta. A los ojos de Jaime, Olivia tiene otra vez un valor particularmente monetario, el de la deuda que tiene que pagar, o sea alrededor de siete mil euros. Para su madre, Olivia es a la vez una hija y una fuente de fondos para pagar las cuentas del hospital, así que tiene valor económico pero también familiar y sentimental. Además, en un momento Olivia expresa el deseo de estudiar el turismo para abrir una agencia de viajes en Ecuador. Sincero o no, ese deseo genera otra deuda al nivel nacional porque ella muere en tierra española, privando a Ecuador del turismo futuro. Al final, una mirada así hacia la vida y muerte de este personaje nos da una mínima idea de la imposibilidad de imponer un valor puramente económico en el impacto de un ser humano. A la vez, la posición de ella como ecuatoriana en España complica la pregunta de deudas.

Al final, esto nos trae la pregunta ¿Quién es el culpable de la muerte de Olivia que tendría que pagar estas deudas? ¿Los médicos ecuatorianos por no haber operado en ella? ¿La madre enferma por haber necesitado tanto dinero? ¿Nico por haberla provocado a Olivia? ¿España por la imposibilidad de encontrar trabajos buenos sin recurrir a la prostitución? ¿España otra vez por su involucración en la Conquista de las Américas? En fin, estas preguntas dan una impresión de cuán difícil es (y cuán ridículo) intentar cuantificar la vida de alguien y las deudas que genera a lo largo de su vida. Sin embargo, a pesar de lo ridículo que parece, esta idea nos ayuda a considerar la inmoralidad e falta de eficacia de un punto de vista puramente económica en una consideración de la justicia. Al final de la novela, vemos dos modos de aprovecharse de la “justicia” con la muerte de Olivia y ambos centran en el dinero: el sargento de la policía alude a la posibilidad de un pleito y Javier juega con una justicia personal, sin recurrir a los tribunales. Sin embargo, estas dos maneras de distribuir la justicia no consideran el valor total de la vida de Olivia y no intentan realmente determinar el culpable de su muerte. Pensando en casos como el de Olivia, de inmigrantes buscando una vida mejor que no la encuentran, podemos ver los lazos inextricablemente enredados entre lo económico y lo social y la aparente imposibilidad de cuantificar las deudas socio-económicos engendrados por ellos.

Caitlin’s response 2/24 – nunca cambia nada

In José Ovejero’s novel Nunca pasa nada, the arguable protagonist, an Ecuadorian immigrant by the name of Olivia, reveals the world around her to be one of prejudice, contradictions, and both racist and sexist perceptions that, while reconstructed to fit within a modern framework, are nevertheless reminiscent of a violent colonial past. While Olivia is required by pure necessity to move and adapt to a foreign country and culture, she is caught in an endless number of tensions that appear to provide her salvation while simultaneously condemning her. In the shadow cast by the unquestionable importance of money and social appearances, Olivia’s situation raises difficult questions regarding immigrants’ rights and human rights as a whole.

The first of Olivia’s problems, and the issue that continues to drive the narrative, is her debt. Having failed to pay back the loan for her immigration and sending it instead to her dying mother, Olivia finds herself in a difficult and even dangerous situation from the very beginning. Julián constantly haunts her, demanding she pay him what she owes. While Julián explains that he cannot cover for her debt and that charity simply does not exist in his world, the reader might begin to question the ethics of the society beyond this single character. A young girl forced to move to a “first-world” country to find a job that pays for her mother’s chemotherapy is certainly an indication that the system in her own country is broken (and the history of this problem is, of course, all too clear). But when she encounters an equally difficult, and significantly more dangerous situation in the very country where she hoped to find economic aid, the disguised but ever-existing power relationship between the historic colonizer and colonized rises brutally to the surface. As an illegal immigrant, Olivia cannot seek government aid (if any where to be available) and those surrounding her who could help her place her instead in the inevitable role of victim.

The monetary solution to her problem could, according to Julián, be solved if Olivia were to work nights. Her religious and moral convictions, however, prevent her from doing so. When she seeks aid from her priest, he fails to understand the extreme necessity in which she finds herself and is unable (more likely unwilling) to help her solve any of her problems, although continues to encourage her to look to God for her answers. The pressing need to pay back the debt and the knowledge that she can never do it while staying within her moral rules of conduct disables Olivia from moving in any direction and surrounds her with harsh judgment and threats from all sides.

Nico appears to provide a possible exit to this violent situation, albeit providing an equally violent alternative. Nico’s “educated” views on the colonial relationship between their two countries instill in him a sense of guilt and a desire to relieve that guilt by offering to provide Olivia with an official education. Although seemingly progressive and thoughtful, Nico’s offer is saturated in ignorant stereotypes and driven by personal satisfaction. For the same reasons that he sees Olivia as socially inferior, he is also attracted by her aura of innocence, ignorance and genuine honesty. He justifies many of these sexual advances as providing comfort to Olivia, thereby alleviating his conscious. Olivia, finding herself in another morally questionable circumstance, attempts to convince herself of the relative harmlessness of the situation, aware that her alternatives are more than likely worse. Her death, while explained by natural causes, is evidently triggered by this emotional abuse and, while tragic, serves to expose the human rights injustices that immigrants are forced to suffer. The circumstances may have changed, but they simply hide the underlying colonialist relationship underneath.

Latin America and Bill McKibben’s notion of “more versus better”

The More versus Better paradigm Bill Mckibben discusses in Deep Economy is particularly compelling when considering the role Latin America occupies as a site of globalization and a source of inexpensive labor that facilitates the North American consumerism. While it is true that a new social and economic consciousness concerning this paradigm and its effects on labor forces abroad is emerging within certain sectors of the US population, the notion of producing more consumable goods as efficiently and cheaply as possible still remains the dominant viewpoint. McKibben focuses on the effects More versus Better has had on the United States reality, however I believe it is useful and applicable to consider it within the context of Latin America. Production is often outsourced to the Global South (among other geographic regions), which has effectively transformed the region’s cultural, economic, and environmental landscape in the name of American wealth and happiness.

The effects of globalization are multifaceted and it can be seen that the cultural and economic effects are the most prominent. The issue of identity emerges in how one must rethink culture and consider how culture is transformed by globalization; this is to say that must consider the heterogenization (the blending of cultures) and homogenization (the fear of widespread cultural Americanization, commoditization, or absorption by polities of a larger scale) of culture in global society. However, in economic terms, globalization and poverty emerge as the primary discourse. The polemic paradigm of “poverty among plenty” is part of the globalized reality and is the consequence of unbridled transnational capital that crosses the North to South divide.

Economic imperialism and neocolonialism continue to be long-standing traditions in the Global South. The notion of the “free state” is both paradoxical and ironic; the status of a “free state” only true liberates the small wealthy sector of the population. Much of the population is under the control of transnational corporations that control “free” enterprise that serves the needs of American consumerism. However, it can be seen that these transnational corporations are “peripheralizing;” they are maintaining the façade of withdrawing direct control from a country’s economy by drawing local businesses into informal and dependent working relationships. While in theory drawing on local enterprise is locally beneficial, without long-term formal commitments or contracts from foreign-owned multinational corporations, this is damaging to local economies because it creates economic vulnerability and dependence.

Local cultures and economies are finding it difficult to hold out against the power of transnational global culture and presence, and this exploitation of local industry and populations by transnational corporations creates long-term consequences. McKibben posits that American growth and demands have exceeded its environmental capacity, and therefore, growth must be outsourced at the expense of the environment and certain sectors of the population. Calling to mind the work of Rob Nixon and the theory of slow violence, the transnational corporations’ desire to increase profit margins manifest in damaging ways—pollution, disregard for safe working conditions, hunger, poverty, deforestation and erosion, displacement of peoples, and the elimination of local industry that limits (or eliminates) the possibility of mobility. This economic race to the bottom creates spaces and cultures of violence, which are accompanied by a host of emergent ethical and social issues. Although McKibben’s work does focus on the United States reality, when viewed within a global context, it is particularly salient and compelling to consider the role Latin America occupies in relation to American consumerism and as a source of labor for industry that drives wealth and provides (or fails to provide) material happiness and satisfaction.