Synopses & Reviews
In Ciudad Juandaacute;rez, Mexico, people disappear, their bodies dumped in deserted city lots or jettisoned in the unforgiving desert. All too many of them are women.
More or Less Dead analyzes how such violence against women has been represented in news media, books, films, photography, and art. Alice Driver argues that the various cultural reports often express anxiety or criticism about how women traverse and inhabit the geography of Ciudad Juandaacute;rez and further the idea of the public female body as hypersexualized. Rather than searching for justice, the various mediaandmdash;art, photography, and even graffitiandmdash;often reuse victimized bodies in sensationalist, attention-grabbing ways. In order to counteract such views, local activists mark the city with graffiti and memorials that create a living memory of the violence and try to humanize the victims of these crimes.
The phrase andldquo;more or less deadandrdquo; was coined by Chilean author Roberto Bolaandntilde;o in his novel 2666, a penetrating fictional study of Juandaacute;rez. Driver explains that victims are andldquo;more or less deadandrdquo; because their bodies are never found or arenandrsquo;t properly identified, leaving families with an uncertainty lasting for decadesandmdash;or forever.
The authorandrsquo;s clear, precise journalistic style tackles the ethics of representing feminicide victims in Ciudad Juandaacute;rez. Making a distinction between the words andldquo;femicideandrdquo; (the murder of girls or women) and andldquo;feminicideandrdquo; (murder as a gender-driven event), one of her interviewees says, andldquo;Women are killed for being women, and they are victims of masculine violence because they are women. It is a crime of hate against the female gender. These are crimes of power.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Advances the line of critical work on the relationship of violence, death, memory, gender, and representation along the U.S.-Mexico border.andrdquo;andmdash;Ignacio Corona, co-editor of Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border: Media Representation and Public Response
Review
andldquo;Well-written and engaging. The methodology is appropriately interdisciplinary, and the juxtaposition of a broad array of texts is original and interesting.andrdquo;andmdash;Rosa Linda Fregoso, editor of Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Americas
Synopsis
More or Less Dead is a rigorous critical work that asks us to reexamine conversations about human rights. This provocative book offers a penetrating portrayal of life and death in Ciudad Juandaacute;rez.
About the Author
Alice Driver is a freelance writer, editor, and translator who received her PhD in Hispanic studies from the University of Kentucky in 2011. She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Universidad Nacional Autandoacute;noma de Mandeacute;xico, where she worked with the Centro de Investigaciones sobre Amandeacute;rica del Norte to conductand#160;research about the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration, poverty, andand#160;violence against women.