2024 Theses Doctoral

Imaginaries of the Common in Contemporary Venezuela (2010-2024)

Blanco, Elvira Eloisa

This dissertation examines cultural artifacts that represent the common: the political logic expressed in practices of mutual aid and solidarity, resource-sharing, de-privatization, and the collective management of social reproduction. While terms like "common" and "communal" are often associated with the discourse of the Bolivarian Revolution—the political project that has been in power in Venezuela since 1999—, I shed light on works created at the margins of the state between 2010 and 2021.

Drawing on a diverse range of sources, including fiction and documentary films, paper-based artworks, nonfiction writing, and activist media, I analyze the underlying logics of commoning as they unfold within urban spaces and explore the role of popular religiosity in sustaining the politics of the common.

Additionally, I delve into the controversy surrounding recent mega-mining projects in the Amazon to examine the tension between viewing nature as a set of exploitable common resources versus understanding nature as a living entity. Thus, employing the common as an interpretive framework, I analyze the cultural landscape in response to the profound social, political, and economic crisis that emerged in Venezuela in the early 2010s.

Furthermore, my cultural studies perspective highlights the potential of aesthetic and fictional works to generate theories of the common, thereby contributing to global debates on this subject predominantly shaped by historians, philosophers, and social scientists.