Animita Cartonera: The Body and Soul of Literary Production in Contemporary Chile

This essay analyzes Animita Cartonera, an independent Chilean press that uses recycled cardboard in its artisanal production of “book-objects.” In the context of Chile’s newly democratic period, I argue that Animita Cartonera’s style of book-object production both maintains and redefines the marginal, anti-neoliberal and pro-democratic identity that artisanal book-objects, specifically those made out of cheap and re-used materials, acquired during Chile’s years of military dictatorship (1973-1989). Both authoritarianism and neoliberalism in Chile have attempted to repress the social-symbolic (i.e. spiritual) function of literature in order to privilege its material existence as an economic good. Animita Cartonera deconstructs this body/spirit binary by producing literature’s social meaning through the collective and egalitarian production of the material body of books. By enfranchising society’s lower social sectors in its production of book-objects, Animita Cartonera brings the Chilean margins into the mainstream of national culture. The press’ compliance with the state’s new program of "cultural institutionalization" evidences the continued struggle in post-dictatorial Chile between democratic progress and neoliberal hegemony.