The Aesthetics of Alienation and the Problem of Emancipation: The Case of Cuban and Salvadoran Smartphone Media
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| Autore: | |
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| Natura: | artículo original |
| Data di pubblicazione: | 2025 |
| Descrizione: | This article analyzes mobile videography in Cuba and El Salvadorthrough the lens of critical theory, focusing on how aesthetic strategiesdeployed by female creators negotiate alienation and pursue symbolic ormaterial emancipation. Drawing on Rahel Jaeggi’s theory of alienationand Habermasian concepts of communicative action, this study comparesrural Salvadoran soap-opera-style productions with Cuban urbanvisual satire. While Salvadoran videos often depict domestic resiliencewithin modest settings without overt critique, Cuban creators highlighturban decay and employ irony to expose social contradictions. Using aqualitative, interpretive approach, this study identifies three core dynamics:(1) contrasting aesthetic strategies shaped by cultural and infrastructuralcontexts, (2) divergent modes of appropriation and authorship enabledby mobile technologies, and (3) emergent, though partial, forms ofemancipation, most notably among women, through creative autonomyand economic self-positioning. Ultimately, the findings suggest that underconditions of structural alienation, the mobile phone camera becomesa symbolic tool through which creators, especially women, negotiatemeaning, reclaim interpretive agency, and pursue situated forms of partialemancipation. |
| Stato: | Kérwá |
| Istituzione: | Universidad de Costa Rica |
| Repositorio: | Kérwá |
| Lingua: | Inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:kerwa.ucr.ac.cr:10669/104018 |
| Accesso online: | https://hdl.handle.net/10669/104018 https://doi.org/10.24018/ejart.2025.3.2.33 |
| Keyword: | Alienation Cuba smartphone-cinematography YouTube |