Jania Kudaibergen, Marco Thomas Bosshard (eds.)

La literatura como práctica militante: a propósito de la literatura cartonera By John Beverley (pagina 13)
Literature as a militant practice: about cartonera literature de John Beverley (page 13)
Edition tranvía · Verlag Walter Frey. Berlin 2021

"Building cardboard books, we protect tire environment and foster social practices of reading and writing, through ICT" is a project aimed at students in fifth and sixth grade in Holy Child Mary School of Tacna-Peru and students, leachers, parents, authorities, etc. participate in its implementation. The target population is 300 people every year. The problem that helps mitigate the Project is the environmental deterioration. By reusing cardboard obtained from the markets of Tacna, to make creative books, and make clear that recycling is possible and necessary. After, with the use of cardboard booklets thee process of reading and writing and social practices were promoted, using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) lo strengthen reading skills, and raise environmental awareness. To get this aim, a face learning environment mediated by ICT was designed, in which a number of strategies and activities that were shared on tire web through blog and Facebook were proposed. This practice was implemented in 2009 and improved over the years, being awarded several times.”

"Construyendo libros cañoneros, protegemos el medio ambiente y fomentamos prácticas sociales de lectura y escritura, a través de las TIC", es un proyecto dirigido a alumnas de quinto y sexto grado de la LE. Santísima Niña María de Tacna-Perú y participan en su ejecución: estudiantes, profesores, padres de familia, autoridades, etc. La población beneficiaria asciende a 300 personas cada año. El problema que ayuda a mitigar el proyecto, es el deterioro del medio ambiente, reutilizando el cartón obtenido de los mercadillos de Tacna, para confeccionar libros creativos, y hacer evidente que el reciclaje es posible y necesario. Posteriormente se afianzó con los libritos cartoneros el proceso de lectura y escritura y se fomentaron las prácticas sociales, usando las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicaciones (TIC), para fortalecer la competencia lectora, así como despertar la conciencia ambiental. Para este fin, se diseñó un ambiente de aprendizaje presencial mediado por las TIC, en el cual se propuso una serie de estrategias y actividades que fueron compartidas en la web a través del blog y Facebook del proyecto. Esta práctica fue implementada en el 2009 y mejorada a través de los años, siendo premiada en varias oportunidades.”

Eloísa Cartonera started publishing books with four main objectives:

1) the restoration of dignity and cultural authority to working people;
2) the dissemination of works by a mix of emerging and recognized writers pushing the limits of narrative and poetic experimentation;
3) the creation of a new praxis drawn on political empowerment through literacy workshops, advocacy, and political activism;
4) the exploration of new means of sustainability in the free market economy.

Interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and counter-disciplinarity are the hallmark of cultural studies and qualitative research, as scholars over the past three decades have discussed through extensive self-reflexive inquiry into their own unstable and ever-shifting methods (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018; Dicks et al., 2006: 78; Grossberg, 2010). Building on the interdisciplinary thought of Jacques Rancière and Caroline Levine on the one hand and traditions of participatory action research and activist anthropology on the other, we bring the methods conversation forward by shifting the focus from disciplines to forms and by making a case for aesthetic practice as qualitative research process. In this paper, the question of methods is approached through the actionbased Cartonera Publishing Project with editoriales cartoneras in Latin America – community publishers who make low-cost books out of materials recovered from the street in the attempt to democratise and decolonise literary/artistic production – and specifically through our process-oriented, collaborative work with four cartonera publishers in Brazil and Mexico. Guided by the multiple forms of cartonera knowledge production, which are rooted not in academic research but rather in aesthetic practice and community relations, we offer an innovative ‘trans-formal’ methodological framework, which opens up new pathways for practitioners and researchers to work, think and act across social, cultural and aesthetic forms.

Cartonera publishing emerged in post-crisis Buenos Aires with the birth of Eloísa cartonera (2003), whose founders proposed a radically new model of making books out of recycled cardboard, purchased from, and made with, cartoneros (waste-pickers). Since then, this model has been adapted across Latin America by an ever-growing number of collectives (currently around 250). In this article we ask: What relations and/or networks have enabled this model of underground cultural production to grow on such a scale? What modalities of resistance do they enable? Our contention is that Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of rhizomes helps in understanding the ways in which cartoneras work, network and spread. Examining texts and practices across Argentina, Mexico and Brazil through literary analysis and ethnography, we make a case for the political significance of cartonera networks and, more broadly, the possibilities afforded by rhizomatic formations for emerging modes of micro-political action and transnational cultural activism.

This collection is the result of a Prisoner Publishing pilot project inspired by the work of nine imprisoned writers from Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, Mexico. The Puente Grande project was facilitated by DIY publishers Sergio Fong (La Rueda Cartonera) and Israel Soberanes (Viento Cartonero), who encouraged participants to put their pens to paper and taught them to make their own books by hand, using recycled cardboard to produce unique, colourful covers.
Inspired by the cartonera model, and the work of Sergio and Israel in Puente Grande, we decided to trial a new 5-day prisoner publishing programme at HMP Nottingham, in response to the high turnover of prisoners in this Category B, short-sentence prison. Rather than taking a pre-established programme to the prison, we designed a loose course that one participant, Mick, later referred to as “creative writing with a twist of art”. As the week progressed, the programme took shape, guided by the participants and their interests.
Over these four days, we facilitated structured and less structured activities, from writing sense poems and rap lyrics to discussing what it would take to have a world without prisons. Unlocked is result of a process that brings together learners and teachers on a horizontal plane of co-production; a process whereby participants learn new skills and techniques, but also get the opportunity to share their existing skills and knowledge; a process that encourages self-reflection and team work; a process that fosters self-confidence and mutual trust; a process that unlocked creativity, vitality, and imagination.