Code Work

How Mexican and Latinx hackers apply concepts from coding to their lived experiences

In Code Work, Hector Beltran examines Mexican and Latinx coders' personal strategies of self-making as they navigate a transnational economy of tech work. Beltran shows how these hackers apply concepts from the code worlds to their lived experiences, deploying batches, loose coupling, iterative processing (looping), hacking, prototyping, and full-stack development in their daily social interactions—at home, in the workplace, on the dating scene, and in their understanding of the economy, culture, and geopolitics. Merging ethnographic analysis with systems thinking, he draws on his eight years of research in Mexico and the United States—during which he participated in and observed hackathons, hacker schools, and tech entrepreneurship conferences—to unpack the conundrums faced by workers in a tech economy that stretches from villages in rural Mexico to Silicon Valley.

Beltran's highly original, wide-ranging analysis uniquely connects technology studies, the anthropology of capitalism, and Latinx and Latin American studies.