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In my dissertation, I argue that 21st-century Latin American post-apocalyptic science fiction literature disentangles the relationship between contemporary capitalism, global ecological crisis and the collapse of our social organizations. I focus on how this literature approaches the escalation of accumulation processes by exploring its impact on the environment, the decay of the State, and the radicalization of exploitation systems that shape posthuman experiences of inhabitance and survival.
This project offers a close analysis of narrative elements in novels and short stories such as Proyecto Sinvir (Ramos Wong 2019), Cadáver exquisito (Bazterrica 2017), Iris (Paz Soldán 2014), “Legado” (Mego Ramírez 2020), and Mugre rosa (Trías 2020). In these literary works, I examine the efforts to capitalize and destroy posthuman bodies and their inter-species assemblages. Each chapter deals with a political and economic articulation that defines an aspect of contemporary capitalist accumulation. In Chapter 1, I address imaginaries of the dystopian Corporative State, where the reengineering of life subsumes human existence into algorithmic profiles to accomplish the success of economic schemes. Chapter 2 explores the effects of the climate crisis and political decisions in global food systems, and how scarcity is placed as the foundation of thanato-economies where human bodies are considered meat-commodities. In Chapter 3, I examine necropolitical extractions where all kinds of life are disposable and overexploited in the service of enriching extraterritorial entities. Finally, Chapter 4 highlights the persistence of capitalist meanings and practices at the edge of the massive extinction of life, dismantling emergent political and ethical bonds of care.
This research engages with post-humanism, post-structuralism, monster and animal studies, as well as bio-, necro-, and thanato-political questions regarding life on Earth and the organization of human societies. Through these theoretical frameworks, I address urgent questions about livability in a world where all manifestations of life are commodified, focusing on the insights of intellectuals such as Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, and Anna Tsing. To discuss contemporary capitalism in post-apocalyptic contexts, I engage with the works of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, David Harvey, Naomi Klein, Saskia Sassen, Achille Mbembe, Jason W. Moore, and Justin McBrien. To understand politics after the end of the world, I turn to theories of the body and life proposed by Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben, and Roberto Esposito. Finally, I analyze a selection of literary works, using Fredric Jameson’s contributions to explore themes of science fiction, realism, and the future. This study contributes to the discussion and positioning of Latin American post-apocalyptic science fiction as a resourceful literary corpus and sensing tool necessary to recognize the aftermath of technology and the challenges of our new world landscape.