Representing the Barrios: Culture, Politics, and Urban Poverty in Twentieth-Century Caracas

In Venezuela, urban poverty has become a significant resource in national culture and statecraft, attracting the attention of writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians. Barrios are fetishized as sites of sex, crime, revolution, disease, and violence, but they have also resisted exploitation by exceeding the terms of their representation in hegemonic culture and politics. Rebecca Jarman's cultural analysis of the history of poverty in Caracas highlights the recurrent tensions, anxieties, conflicts, aspirations, and blind spots that characterize depictions of the barrios.

Format: Hardback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 05 September 2023
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

In the face of rapid urbanization and the dominance of a global economy fueled by carbon, Rebecca Jarman makes a compelling argument that urban poverty has emerged as a significant resource in national culture and statecraft in Venezuela. The barrios, which are located within the city of Caracas, have captured the attention of writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, both within and outside of its borders. These areas are often fetishized in the cultural realm as hotbeds of rampant sex, crime, revolution, disease, and violence. The allure of the urban poor in entertainment is replicated in the policies of authoritarian leaders who, operating within an extractivist framework that values land and capital acquisition, seek to expand their influence into these densely populated territories. While some barrios may succumb to commodification, they have also demonstrated resilience by challenging the dominant narratives that perpetuate poverty and undermining class-based stereotypes through experimental aesthetics. As a dynamic and ever-shifting set of coordinates, the barrio consistently evades attempts to appropriate disenfranchisement. By mapping the recurring tensions, anxieties, conflicts, aspirations, and blind spots that characterize depictions of the barrios, Rebecca Jarman offers a rich cultural analysis of the history of poverty in the Venezuelan capital.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780822947653