‘Overloaded like a Bolivian truck’
Discursive constructions of gender, race, and nationalism in northern Chilean memes
Memes have become an important linguistic tool not only for communicating emotions and ideas, but also are
integral to constructing the self in online space. This paper concentrates on copper miners in northern Chile and the ways they
use memes to make claims related to (hetero)sexuality, mestizaje, and nationalism. With men at the mine during
week-long shifts and families in towns several hours away, social media is important for maintaining communication as well as
representing the self. Miners present their labor as central to their sense of self, with memes that indirectly index
heterosexuality, modernity associated with resource extraction, and racial mestizaje linked to nationalism. The
visibility of these memes across spaces of both mine and town gives men an opportunity to construct a cohesive digital self, with
implications for reinforcing assumptions about what is appropriate gender performance.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Curating memes, performing self
- 3.Histories of resources, race and gender
- 4.Legacies of race and nation
- 5.Chilean mining in the 21st century
- 6.Pride in masculine work
- 7.Humor and sexuality
- 8.Online identifications
- 9.Conclusion
- Notes
-
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Cited by (3)
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2021.
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Gender and Language 15:2
► pp. 207 ff.

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