“Undocumented and unafraid”? Challenging the bureaucratic paradigm

• Autores: E. Johanna Hartelius
• Localización: Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, ISSN-e 1479-4233, Nº. 13, 2, 2016, págs. 130-149
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Among immigrant rights activists, journalists, and scholars the term “undocumented” has gained support as an alternative to the criminalizing and dehumanizing “illegal.” By contrast, this essay critiques so-called DREAMers' articulation of an “undocumented” subjectivity, arguing that the term, invoking a Weberian bureaucracy, undermines activists' cooptive intent and subversive agenda. To be undocumented in what Robert Hariman calls “a polity of offices,” which privileges the written text, is to be both unintelligible and powerless. These constraints, however, may be circumvented by the use of web-text for mobilization, recruitment, and networking. Informed by Gregory Ulmer's notion of “electracy,” I posit web-text as transitional, potentially capable of contesting the authority of the bureaucracy.