Representations of abject corporality in narrative about Central American migration in Mexico

Abstract

This paper explores and analyses the representation of Central American migrant characters in the Mexican novels La fila india (2013) by Antonio Ortuño, Alejandro Hernández's Amarás a Dios sobre todas las cosas (2013) and, Emiliano Monge's  Las tierras arrasadas (2015). The study focuses on the configuration of corporality, the construction of otherness and social distancing based on xenophobia and the relationship of hate speech to political, structural and symbolic violence. From Achille Mbembe´s idea of necropolitics and Julia Kristeva´s concept of abyection, it is possible to draw several readings on the dynamics of the migrant body´s aggression, as well as Mexican society assimilation of violence, and their literary representation within the past five years. These can be interpreted as criticism of the fragile policies regarding the protection of migrants’ human rights and, the normalization of violence in both discourse and practice. This analysis seeks to emphasize the logics of power in the exercise of aggression and the invisibilization of the migrant addressed by these writers.