Response to "Unruly Labors and Speculations of Dissent"

As chair and moderator, Shelley Streeby responds to the three papers, with a focus on how the “speculative” works as an analytic for deliberating Latina/o Studies, and what new vocabularies may emerge to revalue... [ view full abstract ]

As chair and moderator, Shelley Streeby responds to the three papers, with a focus on how the “speculative” works as an analytic for deliberating Latina/o Studies, and what new vocabularies may emerge to revalue conversations rearticulated as unruly, uncivil, and undisciplined.

Our proposed panel, “Unruly Labors and Speculations of Dissent” deliberates on the promises and refusals generated by examinations of Latin@ labor futurity. The papers theorize comparative racialized labors, and narratives of resistance to exploitation, as spatially and temporally promiscuous endeavors. As such, the panel also declines to harbor projects within pristine disciplinary boundaries: respectively, the papers examine filmmaker Alex Rivera’s 1997 Why Cybraceros?, a satirical response to late 1990s Internet utopianism incorporating footage from the 1959 agribusiness film Why Braceros?; Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita’s 2009 sci-fi novel Lunar Braceros: 2125-2148; and labor management journals in conversation with Cristina García’s 2010 novel The Lady Matador’s Hotel.