Small-Scale Sovereignty. Personal forms of rule in everyday life and their representation in the 20th and 21st century Hispanic American novel.

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What is the idea behind the project?

As can currently and repeatedly be observed, political or economic efforts that undermine or even permanently jeopardize the power structures of states flourish in times of crisis. This can be seen, for example, in the success of populist parties in the context of modern electoral democracies. However, the extent to which economic globalization is pushing back the influence of state authorities has also been discussed for some time.

Why Latin America?

Looking at Latin America, such trends can be observed as if through a magnifying glass: This region of the world has some of the highest rates of social inequality. Political and social crises (social emergencies, protests, crime) are the order of the day. At the same time, Latin American countries are the focus of international economic interests due to their wealth of raw materials, but for various reasons these countries themselves rarely use these resources for the prosperity of their own societies. In the context of the climate crisis, a massive rise in the cost of living and new authoritarianism, the aforementioned trends in Latin America will also be closely observed in Europe.

Bibliographies

Bibliography for the sub-corpus "Narraciones de oficina"

Bibliography on the "Narcoliteratura" sub-corpus

Research bibliography for the DFG project "Small Sovereignty. Personal forms of power in everyday life and their representation in the Hispanic American novel of the 20th and 21st centuries" (2022-2025)

What does 'small sovereignty' mean and why is narrative literature of interest in this context?

In this project, Hispanic-American narrative literature will be used to show that, in a context of social hardship, inequality, and weak political institutions, small sovereignty is part of the everyday social view. By 'small sovereignty' is meant everyday rulers:inside, who in their initially manageable spheres of activity push back the influence of state power and authority. As an archive of social experience, novel literature is a suitable medium for condensing such processes into characters, narratives, and perspectives.

What have we set out to do?

In the course of research and reading, configurations of everyday domination are made visible and analytically described. This is done in relation to two genres: office literature (a), and literature about drug-related crime (b). In this way, an extensive corpus of relevant texts as well as a collection of examples emerge from which patterns of political traditions present in that region of the world can be indicated, which, however, are of equally high relevance for other global contexts.

Contact us

Project Leader
Prof. Dr. Jan-Henrik Witthaus

Research assistant
Karolin Schäfer