Technocritical Economy of Desire: Handbook of Agencements

La Partida was born in 2018 as a hacker group dedicated to technocritical knowledge production. The name irreverently evokes the virgin of La Partida —patron saint of programmers in internet lore— and the concept of 'partida' as opening, detour, fresh start.

We operated as a cooperative wiki: shared knowledge bases, project management workshops, legal research for cooperatives, and a work methodology blending hypertext, kanban, and critical theory. The premise was simple: if capitalism is a hydra mutating faster than our capacity to think it, we need to accelerate our collective cognition.

The project is structured as a handbook —not a treatise, not a conventional thesis— of agencements. The notion of agencement (Deleuze-Guattari) designates the coupling of bodies, techniques, affects, and statements that produces a capacity to act. A handbook is a form of knowledge oriented toward action.

The conversations with Davatiz function as a guiding thread: an interlocutor that allows thought to unfold in dialogue, not academic monologue. Design appears here not as an aesthetic discipline but as a form of systematic thinking: to design is to arrange elements to produce effects. Against the imaginary autonomy of the liberal subject, we propose real and effective autonomy through media, techniques, hacks, and performatives.

The 17 Institute for Critical Studies offers a PhD in Critical Theory with official accreditation (SEP 20121789). Mixed modality: online seminars and in-person colloquia in Mexico City. Five semesters, 100 credits.

Areas of study: philosophy, political thought, psychoanalysis, ecology and technology, gender studies, literature, cultural management, among others. The program maintains exchanges with the University of Aberdeen, FLACSO Mexico, the European Graduate School, and the Collège International de Philosophie.