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filthpolitics's review against another edition
5.0
Totally fucking unsettling ending, holy shit, okay. Anyway, I loved Valencia’s prose and her thinking and the sources she found to quote and this was just a good experience to read!
caseygripps's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
I think the ideas and concepts in this book are great, but my problem with it lies in its argumentation (or really... lack thereof). Valencia tends to rush through ideas, leaving much to be desired in logical reasoning. Relatedly, because of this lack of argument and explanation, I found myself confused by some of Valencia's use of terms throughout the book (most notably, the way she would speak about 'drugs' and the drug trade when seemingly only discussing specific drugs like cocaine and heroin and their specific forms of trade). Despite the book's faults, I have since found myself reaching for the ideas found within when conversing with friends and colleagues on related topics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
harryhas29's review against another edition
3.0
"That dead man shook me out of my spectralized and comfortable idea of death, ripped me out of the mediatized logic that tells us that bad things always happen to Others. The body makes me realize that I am the Others, without any inkling of humanism, coolness, or dilettantish solidarity. In other words, that dead man reconfirms for me that I am irrevocably marked by gender, race, class, and the geopolitical distribution of vulnerability. That dead man tells me that I am also responsible for his dismemberment, that my passivity as a citizen is crystallized in impunity. That dead man [...] tells me that I have to do something with this, because if I don't, it'll do something to me. That is the very beginning."
Well stated and formalized but not necessarily so well argued throughout. As a work about proposing systems by which to view violence, this is a success. But perhaps not so much as defense of its own assertions, although I do generally believe them to be true.
Well stated and formalized but not necessarily so well argued throughout. As a work about proposing systems by which to view violence, this is a success. But perhaps not so much as defense of its own assertions, although I do generally believe them to be true.
lazaronenufar's review against another edition
2.0
Tengo muchos peros con este ensayo. El más grande es que pese a que busca ser una salida a la narrativa oficial de la violencia en México, se adscribe a dicha narrativa perpetuando la perspectiva del narco-todo-poderoso. Aunado a eso, resta toda responsabilidad al Estado y lo coloca solo como un protagonista secundario.
Luego de "Los carteles no existen" se esperarían que intelectuales y académicos se alejaran de narrativas oficiales.
Por otro lado, me parece que no hay una profundización en la relación de lo gore y los transfeminismos como resistencia. Se llega a mencionar, pero no hay profundidad. Es casi una romantización de su condición humana.
Rescato la categorización del endriago, pero no darle toda la responsabilidad de la violencia.
Luego de "Los carteles no existen" se esperarían que intelectuales y académicos se alejaran de narrativas oficiales.
Por otro lado, me parece que no hay una profundización en la relación de lo gore y los transfeminismos como resistencia. Se llega a mencionar, pero no hay profundidad. Es casi una romantización de su condición humana.
Rescato la categorización del endriago, pero no darle toda la responsabilidad de la violencia.
maxwellbernardi's review against another edition
4.0
An extensive, well reasoned analysis of capitalism’s relationship to violence and the separation of the “third” and “first” worlds. Provides a strong theoretical perspective without losing sight of the real life horrors and moral depths of epidemic organized crime. My only issue is with the author’s engagement with violence in fictionalized media; I feel she doesn’t sufficiently grapple with the subtleties of critiquing vs merely depicting or applauding crime and violence in art. Her writing on this aspect of violence in a globalized world is so brief and unaddressed I wish she had not sought to cover it all, because the rest of the work is so well thought out.
andyogm's review
4.0
This is a useful book for discussing Mexico (the Third World), Mexico-U.S. relations (core-periphery relations), and the future of neoliberalism. That makes its poor organization all the more disappointing. Valencia doesn't even explain one of the central theories of her book--"endriago subjects"--until literally half way through. Seriously? That should have been front and center along with defining "gore capitalism."
Her conclusions are also so-so. I can get behind the importance of education and transfeminismo in undoing the ultra-violent, patriarchal, gore capitalist system over-taking the border zone, but Valencia stops short of complete anti-capitalism. Strange.
3.75/5
Her conclusions are also so-so. I can get behind the importance of education and transfeminismo in undoing the ultra-violent, patriarchal, gore capitalist system over-taking the border zone, but Valencia stops short of complete anti-capitalism. Strange.
3.75/5
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