Witnessing the Subaltern: Maya Goded’s representation of sex work and violence in Mexico City

Abstract

Witnessing the Subaltern: Maya Goded’s representation of sex work and violence in Mexico City Nathanial Eli Gardner “La fotografía es violenta porque llena a la fuerza la vista y porque nada puede ser transformado ni rechazado…” (Barthes 159) Violence is a term that is increasingly associated with Latin America. In recent years, Mexico has come into sharp focus as academics and other bodies indicate links between that country and how it is shaped by the violence occurring within and around its borders.1 Many of these studies are connected to the narcotics trade. Cultural creators in the field of entertainment have found that both within Latin America and without there is a growing market for those interested in watching drama, documentaries, and docudrama on the drug trade between Latin America and the United States of America as is evidenced by the success of the books such as Roberto Saviano’s Cero, cero, cero, and Pablo Escobar: el patrón del mal (Salazar). Television series such as Correo de inocentes and Narcos as well as films such as The Counsellor and Sicario follow a similar trend. While popular entertainment appears to feed a growing appetite for the rampant viewing of violence in Latin America, there is an increasing need for academic studies on these narratives of the subaltern in order to make visible the narratives of violence that from among those whose situations are presently invisible to hegemony. Photography is one of the ways that this invisibility can be eroded and enables intimate portrayals of violence to augment our comprehension of the plight of the marginal as well as identifying elements that might be unique to the visual. The becoming a visual subject, can indeed be a preliminary step in being a political subject (Coleman 235). For some time, those that study violence have indicated that it can be linked to isolation (Prescott 144). As I embarked on an academic study of the narrative of violence portrayed in Maya Goded’s award-winning study of prostitution in the central district [End Page 15] of La Merced in the Mexican capital, La plaza de la soledad (or Good Girls as its identical counterpart was renamed in English), I too found myself suffering from the same.2 Hence, this is a theme deeply embedded within the photographic narrative which has the capacity to transcend the narrative and weave itself into the life of those who come in close contact with the topic. Though awarding committees on the W. Eugene Smith and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial foundation deemed Goded’s work that attempts to combat the invisibility of the sex trade in Mexico to be worthy of praise and significant funding, unlike the popular portrayals of violence in Mexico previously mentioned; her intimate portrayal of this environment in modern-day Mexico, though valid and relevant, is not a visual narrative that is easily accepted by the public. In an essay on marginality and representation, the academic John Beverly points to the notion that if the subaltern speak to us in a way that is meaningful to us, then they are no longer subaltern. Spivak asserts that if the marginal individuals have a voice then they are no longer subalterns. Much has been written regarding the written voice of the subaltern and the debate has gone in several directions. Regarding the ability to subaltern to be seen, several important points have been established. In his essay “Can the Subaltern Be Seen? Photography and the Affects of Nationalism” the historian Greg Grandin uses photographs of the subaltern in Central America to answer that the subaltern can indeed be seen (81–111). Additionally, photography scholar, Ariella Azoulay, not only confirms photography’s unique ability to represent without the control of hegemony (affirming as well, photography’s ability to represent the subaltern) but also the inability of the sovereign to control photography, how it represents and how it is interpreted. Kevin Coleman points to photography’s ability to allow struggles to become visible to power structures, to wield testimonial authority, and to possess “excessive indexicality” (175). With these points established, there is perhaps one more that is worth consideration: while one must have a voice...