Work and the Post-Crisis: Artistic Representations of Claustrophobic Labor Spaces in Argentina (2001-2011) by Ian Pope Gowan
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Work and the Post-Crisis: Artistic Representations of Claustrophobic Labor Spaces in Argentina (2001-2011) By Ian Pope Gowan Submitted to the graduate degree program in Spanish and Portuguese and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson: Dr. Stuart A. Day ________________________________ Dr. Verónica Garibotto ________________________________ Dr. Jorge Pérez ________________________________ Dr. Robert E. Bayliss ________________________________ Dr. Henry Bial Date Defended: May 8, 2013 ii The Dissertation Committee for Ian Pope Gowan certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Work and the Post-Crisis: Artistic Representations of Claustrophobic Labor Spaces in Argentina (2001-2011) ________________________________ Chairperson: Dr. Stuart A. Day Date approved: May 8, 2013 iii Abstract This dissertation treats a variety of works of Argentine theater, film, and narrative produced between 2001 and 2011, a historical period that serves as the context for the playwrights, directors, and authors studied in this project, as well as for the characters that they depict through their fictional works of art. Common to each of the artistic representations analyzed is a special emphasis placed on a claustrophobic labor space, which I read as a microcosm for Argentine society. This unique setting represents a space from which to establish a critical reflection of the physical, social, racial, and sexual limitations confronted by Argentine citizens of the post 2001 economic crisis. The decision to focus on the suffocating conditions encountered by these characters represents a strategy employed by artists of recent years in order to highlight the lasting detrimental impact of the economic crisis on the country for a full decade after the climax of said economic downturn, despite moderate socioeconomic and political reforms employed during the Kirchner years (2003-present). Although there is not an easily identifiable political discourse shared by artists and texts treated in this project, the emphasis on the problems faced by Argentina of recent years is no doubt a strategy by which to highlight the failure of the neoliberal system employed by Carlos Menem (1989-1999), which arguably resulted in the current situation, and the inability to construct an alternative system capable of providing the country’s citizens (especially of the lower and middle class) with a full socioeconomic recovery from the events of 2001. iv Acknowledgments I would most importantly like to thank my dissertation advisor, Stuart Day, for inspiring, encouraging, and motivating me throughout my entire postgraduate career. I thank him for cultivating my interest in Latin American theater through my many classes with him at the University of Kansas and for the opportunity to work as Editorial Assistant of the Latin American Theater Review. I am grateful for all of the late nights and weekends that were sacrificed in order to move this project along, and for his commitment and faith in this dissertation from the earliest stages until its completion. I would also like to express my gratitude to my dissertation committee for their support, encouragement, and guidance throughout each stage of this project. A special thanks to Verónica Garibotto for her countless suggested readings and films and for sharing her insight on all of these materials while sipping on Maté. Approximately half of the works chosen for this dissertation have been selected from her long lists of suggested artistic works, and my readings of these texts have been enriched by conversations and suggested essays about the sociopolitical context of contemporary Argentina. Jorge Pérez was an inspiring teacher and helped foster my current interest in the formal study of film. He additionally offered prompt and constructive feedback that contributed to the timely advancement of this project. I thank Robert Bayliss for his positive support and expanding my knowledge on Spanish language theater. Thank you to Henry Bial for one of the most interesting classes during my graduate career and for introducing me to the theater community at KU. This project would not have been possible without the financial support of two university grants that funded trips to Argentina in 2009 and 2011 (The Tinker Field Research Grant and the Doctoral Research Travel Grant). These visits allowed me to experience the theater scene in Buenos Aires first hand, where I saw close to 50 plays and I was able to establish important connections with playwrights, directors, actors, and theater critics alike. Every play discussed in this dissertation was seen in Buenos Aires. The play scripts were mostly gathered in independent bookstores throughout Buenos Aires and the unpublished manuscript for Mundo Fabril, a work analyzed in the third chapter of this dissertation, was graciously sent to me in a Word Document by the author himself. v Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: White-Collar Confinement: A Suffocating Market and its Cubicles ..........................25 Chapter 2: Neglected and Exploited: Public Spaces of the Post-Crisis ........................................72 Chapter 3: Welcome to the Machine: Factories in Crises ...........................................................118 Chapter 4: Domestic Affairs: Negotiating Racial, National, and Class Boundaries in Private Residences ...................................................................................................................................152 Conclusion: After the Post-Crisis?...............................................................................................194 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................205 1 Introduction Work and the Post-Crisis: Artistic Representations of Claustrophobic Labor Spaces in Argentina (2001-2011) [T]he process of production is seen to have two political movements. First, the organization of work has political and ideological effects —that is, as men and women transform raw materials into useful things, they also reproduce particular social relations as well as an experience of those relations. Second, alongside the organization of work — that is, the labour process — there are distinctive political and ideological apparatuses of production which regulate production relations. The notion of product regime or, more specifically, factory regime embraces both these dimensions of production politics (Michael Burawoy, The Politics of Production 7-8) This dissertation treats works of Argentine theater, film, and narrative created between 2001 and 2011, a period of time marked by economic and social unrest that reached its peak in December of 2001. This recent historical period serves as the context for the playwrights, directors, and authors studied in this project, as well as for the characters that they depict through their fictional works of art. Although critics such as Johanna Page suggest that there are only “artificial” distinctions that can be made between “pre-Crisis and post-Crisis” (3) I have chosen 2001 as my point of departure because of the enormous impact that had on the socioeconomic condition of the country, and because of its central role in public debate and art from 2001-2011. Even though all artists may not explicitly aim to produce a work “about” the crisis, the mere fact that their work was produced after this important year makes them open to interpretation and analysis as post-crisis products. 2 None of the works analyzed here are as explicitly political as many of their artistic predecessors of the post-dictatorship; however, my reading of these texts are political in the sense that I highlight social problems that can be in turn interpreted as a direct result of an economic and political system in crisis. I have strategically selected the workspace as the focus of my analyses for these texts, seeing as it offers an intricate economic and power structure that serves as a perfect microcosm for Argentine society and its governing body. I argue in this dissertation that what unifies this diverse body of texts is a similarly critical reflection of post- crisis Argentine society, as represented by a claustrophobic workspace. Social, gender, and ethnic conflicts in these workplaces in turn serve as a way to question political system of the post-crisis, the product of ten years of neoliberal economic of reforms during the 1990s that arguably resulted in the 2001 crisis, and how, despite a shift in certain socioeconomic politics during the Kirchner years (2003-present) and some indications of a recovering economy, a continuation of some of the same political tactics have resulted in the persistence of many of the same problems to be faced by citizens (most noticeably those of the middle and lower classes) ten years after the climax of the 2001 economic crisis. THE WORKSPACE This unique setting is appealing for a variety of reasons: first, because it reflects a recent trend in contemporary Argentine cultural production; second, because art set in the place of labor is the most ideal space from which to articulate a commentary on a crisis in labor; and finally, because a workspace not only represents a place where