Spectral Spaces: Haunting in the Latin American City

Abstract

Sierra studies the role of the spectral in contemporary Argentinean fiction through the works of Mariana Enriquez and Samantha Schweblin as it molds and transforms urban space. By employing theories from urban and spectralities studies, she analyzes how the spirits of the dead are woven into the very fabric of the city, as represented in the fiction by Enriquez and Schweblin. As in the fantastic genre, spectral geographies always produce and are produced through a degree of hesitancy. Haunted spaces and ghostly geographies often engender an interpretative position caught or frozen between a familiar explanation of events and a purely supernatural explanation of situations. This uncertainty or hesitancy is the specificity of spectral geographies. Sierra locates the fiction by Enriquez and Schweblin into the context of contemporary Argentinean society in order to study the spectral not only as a trope but also to see the ghost as a social figure.