Ghosts of Violence

Some scholars have argued that in many ways Latin America does not fit into the typical framework of post-colonial critique, specifically the simplified binaries this field implicitly relies on and gives power to. Others have noted that acknowledging the complexity of categories and power structures in Latin America does not preclude that these same binaries have had a profound effect on the development of colonial and post-colonial Latin America. This paper explores both sides of this scholarly debate, putting several texts in conversation with one another in order to show that nuanced and in-depth analysis of colonial hierarchies need not devolve into reductive binary oppositions.