E84: Toward a Media Theory of the U.S.-Mexico Underground (w/ Dr. Juan Llamas-Rodriguez)

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On today’s show, Ben sits down with Dr. Juan Llamas-Rodriguez, Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss his research at the intersections of border studies, infrastructure studies, and Latin American and Latinx diasporic media.

We begin by discussing Juan’s approaches to media studies and challenges in the field, then dive into his new book, Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the U.S.-Mexico Underground (University of Minnesota Press). Together, we reflect on the role of media representing border tunnels–underground networks of built and excavated spaces circumventing the above-ground border. As Juan notes, these tunnels are “nearly inaccessible” to the general public, so through their representation, we see media’s capacity to give meaning to “spaces and structures in excess of their real referent.” Importantly, Juan shows us how the “figure of the border tunnel” relates to the escalating efforts to violently fortify and police the U.S.-Mexico border.

Juan helps us understand the affordances and limitations of border tunnels’ depictions in reality television, newscasts, action films, video games, and speculative design projects. We reflect on the role of popular films that appear in the book, such as the Fast and Furious franchise, video games like Call of Juarez: The Cartel, and the reality television series Border Wars in constructing what Juan calls the “racial infrastructures of the border.” This timely conversation helps us rethink our relationship with popular media and culture, drawing out the seemingly invisible role of border tunnels in shaping our understanding of the borderlands.

Works referenced in this episode

Agudelo, E. (2008). A Practice in Excavating and Envisioning Ambos Nogales. Borderwall as Architecture.

Fojas, C. (2021). Border Optics: Surveillance Cultures of the US-Mexico Frontier. New York University Press.

Fickle, T. (2019). The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities. New York University Press.

Howarth, D. (2016). Beautifying the Border Proposal Replaces US–Mexico Fence with Landscaping. Dezeen.

Hernández, K. (2010). Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. University of California Press.

Knight, K. & Llamas-Rodriguez, J. Migrant Steps Project.

Llamas-Rodriguez, J. (2023). Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the U.S.–Mexico Underground. University of Minnesota Press.

Llamas-Rodriguez, J. (2017). The Datalogical Drug Mule. Feminist Media Histories, 3 (3), 9-29.

Llamas-Rodriguez, J. (2021). First-Person Shooters, Tunnel Warfare, and the Racial Infrastructures of the US–Mexico Border. Lateral, 10 (2).

Llamas-Rodriguez, J. (2022). Ruinous Speculation, Tunnel Environments, and the Sustainable Infrastructures of the Border. Social Text, 40 (4), 97-123.

Llamas-Rodriguez, J. (2021). “The Sewer Transnationalists.” One Shot: A Journal of Critical Games and Play, 2.

Mattern, S. (2018). Scaffolding, Hard and Soft: Media Infrastructures as Critical and Generative Structures. The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities, edited by Jentery Sayers. Routledge.

Parks, L. (2015). “Stuff You Can Kick”: Toward a Theory of Media Infrastructures. Between Humanities and the Digital, edited by Patrik Svensson and David Theo Goldberg. The MIT Press.

Patterson, C. (2020). Open World Empire: Race, Erotics, and the Global Rise of Video Games. New York University Press.

An accessible transcript of this episode can be viewed here:

https://otter.ai/u/xK1Y3uUOPeEXGBnErGd6_8eszXM