Technology, Violence, and the Struggle for Information Sovereignty in Mexico

FAIN: FT-285876-22

Vanessa Freije
University of Washington (Seattle, WA 98195-1016)

Research and writing leading to a book on the evolution of news media in Mexico since the 1970s.

My project analyzes how different Mexican organizations and communities have sought to appropriate and control information since the 1970s. During these decades, violent conflicts and the rapid development of communications raised pressing questions about the role that information should play in society: In whose hands was information safe? What did it mean to democratize information and whom did it benefit? Different groups—from Indigenous video-makers to blogging drug-traffickers—sought answers to these questions. Though their motivations were distinct, they shared a common goal of controlling and producing, or achieving sovereignty over, the information relevant to their communities and organizations. Combining ethnographic and historical methodologies, my project reveals how information struggles shaped the political subjectivities and imaginaries of ordinary Mexicans.