Practices in democratizing literature

a digital ethnography of Latin American cartonera publishing

Abstract

The article focuses on some Latin American cartonera publishers, literary community-based collectives that produce and distribute hand-crafted and hand-painted, cardboard-bound books from materials collected by recycling cooperatives. Based on a digital ethnography, the aim is to analyze networks established among cartoneras from different countries, understanding them as a transnational cultural movement that, on the one hand, proposes alternative ways of producing and distributing books in non-institutionalized territories and, on the other, encourages the transformation of "non-artistic" objects into art. The paper seeks to verify to what extent the potential for artistic creativity put into practice by cartoneras has been responsible for a process of democratization of editorial and literary practices in Latin America. In the first part of the text, we describe the methodological challenges of a collective research carried out in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, stablishing our empirical approach and the tools used throughout the digital ethnography. Then, we consider two strategies that agents have used to confront a model of editorial and literary production that, for them, is excluding. We examine their networks of action and their collective cultural labor routines. Finally, we focused on the “book-object”, based on a discussion about counter-uses of the cardboard as a way to expand practices of democratization of the access to books, reading, and literature.