Abstract

GORTAZAR, Alejandro. Archivo, poder y representación: ficciones de la racialidad en el Río de la Plata (Borges y Onetti). CELEHIS [online]. 2023, n.45, pp.8-8. ISSN 2313-9463.

In this work I try to define the notion of fictions of raciality taking into account the theoretical contributions of Ángel Rama (narrative transculturation and lettered city), Roberto González Echevarría (archive fictions) and Doris Sommer (foundational fictions) in relation to a Latin American storytelling theory; and the contributions of AníbalQuijano regarding the colonial matrix of power, with special emphasis on his idea of race as the center of the world classification of non-European populations, conquered and colonized by different empires. With this theoretical framework in mind, I raised the importance of literature as an institutional practice that contributes and has contributed to the symbolization of ethnic-racial relations in Latin America, from colonial literature unti today. Continuing with this argumental line, fiction channels, in the longue durée, racializing and racist discourses, as well as counter-discourses. From this conceptualization, I chose to work with two significant authors of the literary modernity of the Río de la Plata, such as Borges and Onetti. With the short story "The End" by Jorge Luis Borges and with the novel El astilleroby Juan Carlos Onetti, I intend to expose the usefulness of the notion of fictions of raciality, and some instruments to interpret it. The choice of these two authors is intentional, since their aesthetic searches contributed to a strong criticism of the “empire of realism” and its attachment to the referent. However, the texts can be analyzed from the perspective of racial fictions, not in terms of their correspondence with reality, but in terms of its dialogue with this colonial matrix of power, and with its representations of the other.

Keywords : literature from the Río de Plata; fictions of raciality; coloniality of power.