Papers by Vannina Sztainbok
The Great Pandemic Confinement: Long-term Care, Migrants, and Organized Abandonment., 2021
This article exposes the biopolitical and necropolitical logics that have guided pandemic mitigat... more This article exposes the biopolitical and necropolitical logics that have guided pandemic mitigation in Ontario, Canada. I focus on the carceral character of measures that were deployed under the guise of managing COVID-19. Specifically, I examine two of the populations who were targeted for exceptional measures: the elderly and disabled residents of long-term care homes, who were confined in their rooms for months on end, and migrant farm workers, who were restricted to cramped living quarters and worked alongside infected co-workers. I consider what these measures imply about the problem that is being addressed. I argue that the treatment of these two groups shows the prioritization of the biopolitical imperative to fragment the population, to create a break between those who are to be protected and those who are not. This is an inherently racist imperative that aims to protect the "race" by separating out the weak from the strong, the healthy from the sick, and the self-regulating from the troublesome in order to protect the order required by capital and lessen the burden on the state. Carcerality signals abandonment. These two groups, while demographically quite different, share the characteristic of being outside the realm of life that is considered worthy of protection. Migrant farm workers, valued only for their labour, were always considered expendable. During a pandemic, long-term care home residents-viewed as already dying-fell within the classification of those who were considered too fragile or troublesome to merit protection. Within a society based upon the necropolitical exclusions of settler colonialism, the plantation, and imperialism, these conditions made these two groups utterly abandonable during a pandemic.
Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Gabriella Gutier... more Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann Carmen G. Gonzalez, and Angela Harris, Editors Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2012; 570 pp. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia is a testament to how white supremacy structures academic institutions. Over thirty women of colour (WOC) faculty, located in the US (and one in Canada), contributed to this volume. Through the critical analyses of their own experiences, interviews, and literature reviews they contribute to a growing literature on race and gender in academia, establishing that that their experiences of racism are not isolated but systemic. By taking an intersectional lens, this book shows how racism is enacted in gendered ways and how class positions many WOC faculty marginally in a culture where entitlement, material stability, and cultural capital proffer unacknowledged advantages. The book ...
Sherene Razack argues that codified narratives of torture constitute community and subjects as mu... more Sherene Razack argues that codified narratives of torture constitute community and subjects as much as torture itself does. In the context of the authoritarian regimes that ruled Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s, torture constitutes a major preoccupation in scholarly work as well as in plays, films, and novels. This article builds on Razack's argument by exploring how torture is narrated in three influential plays: Mario Benedetti's Pedro and the Captain (1979), which is set in Uruguay; Eduardo Pavlovsky's Paso de Dos (1990), which is set in Argentina; and Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden (1991), which is set in Chile. We unpack the ways in which the plays grapple with the heteropatriarchal and civilizational character of torture. We propose that, while the plays disturb the civilizational and gendered project of authoritarianism, they do not completely disavow it and continue to rely on liberal discourses of rationality, heteropatriarchy, and recognition. Sherene Razack soutient que les récits systématiques de torture engagent autant les collectivités et les individus que la torture elle-même. Dans le contexte des régimes autocratiques de l'Argentine, du Chili et de l'Uruguay des années70 et 80, les séances de torture sont une préoccupation majeure dans les recherches, ainsi qu'au théâtre, au cinéma et dans les romans. À partir de l'argument de Razack, l'article analyse des narrations de séances de torture dans trois oeuvres très importantes: Pedro et le capitaine de Mario Benedetti (1979), qui se déroule en Uruguay ; Pas de deux d'Eduardo Pavlovsky (1990), qui a lieu en Argentine ; La Jeune fille et la Mort d'Ariel Dorfman (1991), qui prend place au Chili. Nous montrons en quoi ces pièces de théâtre rejettent le caractère hétéropatriarcal et civilisationnel de la torture. Pourtant, même si elles bousculent le projet civilisationnel et sexospécifique de l'autoritarisme, nous soutenons que ces oeuvres ne le désavouent pas entièrement et qu'elles continuent de reposer sur les discours libéraux de rationalité, d'hétéropatriarcat et de reconnaissance. 424 Sztainbok and Macías CJWL/RFD
This essay examines the significance of a 'self-objectifying' carnival performance that draws upo... more This essay examines the significance of a 'self-objectifying' carnival performance that draws upon stereotypes of sexualized black femininity. The scholarship in this area has focused on whether performers reify or contest dominant stereotypes. I shift the lens from the performer to the audience. Specifically I examine fan responses to Rosa Luna , an Afro-Uruguayan Carnival vedette who became synonymous with Montevideo's annual Carnival from the 1950s until her death in 1993. In a nation that is Eurocentric, yet draws on aspects of Afro-Uruguayan culture for its identity, Rosa Luna became a national icon. Her performance embodied dual stereotypes of black femininitythe over-sexualized black woman and the black maternal. By turning to psychoanalytic theory, I argue that the performer is produced through the audience's desire. I suggest that the encounter with the vedette can be understood as a public 'specular moment' that activates the oedipal drama. Her performance reverberated with the symbolic ordering of sex, gender, and race hierarchies, provoking both the desire, and the disavowal of the desire, for black femininity. This insight draws attention to public performance as a site for the negotiation of desires that are structured through, and structure, hierarchical systems.
Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, Jan 1, 2008
Thamyris/Intersecting: Place, Sex and Race, Jan 1, 2011
LANGUAGE CULTURE AND …, Jan 1, 2007
This paper explores ways of using culture and cultural practices as an informing principle in ESL... more This paper explores ways of using culture and cultural practices as an informing principle in ESL teaching. To research culture and ESL teaching, we conducted focus groups with teachers in an urban ethnically diverse school in Toronto, Canada and their student teachers during their month-long practica in the school as a part of a Bachelor of Education programme. As instructors in the teacher education programme, we set out to find ways of infusing culture and cultural awareness into our coursework on ESL teaching and learning. The implications for the study show that culture should not be viewed as a 'discrete' or 'bounded' entity and that teacher education programmes need to do a better job of bridging the divide between theory and practice.
Book Reviews by Vannina Sztainbok
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Papers by Vannina Sztainbok
Book Reviews by Vannina Sztainbok