Maquila Hauntings: Maquilapolis: City of Factories, Global Capitalism, and Spectrality in the Maquiladora Industry on the Mexican Border
Keywords:
maquiladoras; maquilapolis; border studies; neoliberalism; visual studiesAbstract
This article employs spectral theories in order to explore the documentary Maquilapolis: City of Factories (Funari and de la Torre 2006) on border maquiladoras, or export-processing assembly plants. These corporations house the assembly lines that are generally the result of U.S. companies having outsourced in Mexico to find extremely cheap manual labor. The documentary follows a series of women workers in the maquiladoras who organize to gain workers’ rights, albeit often unsuccessfully. The film poignantly underscores the unfair conditions that are the direct result of neoliberal policies, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In this text, I outline a brief history of the maquiladora industry on the border between Mexico and the U.S. I then analyze the intersection between neoliberalism, patriarchal cultures, and poverty that results in femicides, environmental disasters, and a perpetuation of socioeconomic inequalities. In doing so, I employ Achille Mbembe’s spectral theories to demonstrate that this situation presents a ghostly power that has supported similar oppressive capitalistic structures in the past, a system that is nearly impossible to challenge. However, as the documentary demonstrates, there are successful and necessary forms of resistance, such as organizing and creating consciousness of these conditions.
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