Gore Capitalism and the Contemporary Grammars of Violence and Resistance

A critical reflection on Sayak Valecia's book Gore Capitalism. This essay asks how the ideas presented in the book read eight years after its original publication and what it means for Valencia's ideas to "cross the border" in terms of time and space. The 2018 Semiotext(e) publication of an English translation of Tijuana intellectual Sayak Valencia’s 2010 Capitalismo gore brings to Anglophone audiences one of the most important texts of the last decade for understanding the cultural politics of narco-capitalism in Mexico. Scholars from Mexico and the United States assess Valencia’s arguments about the commodification of violence in this iteration of capitalism, addressing themes of necropower, transfeminism, and the representation of gore. Responding to the contributors, Valencia encourages readers to extend the decolonial thinking laid out in her book to the kinds of transnationally linked social justice movements that seek to address the problem of violence in a variety of contexts.