Ghosts,wounded butterflies,and other thin histories: Memory and the Venezuelan diaspora

Abstract

This article examines the tension between “thick” and “thin” histories in the cultural production that has recently emerged in response to the Venezuelan migration crisis. Focusing on the series Ciudadanos fantasmas, by Daniel Hernández, and the experimental documentary Avísame cuando llegues a casa, by Juan Diego Pérez la Cruz, it argues that, in constructing what Omar Kasmani calls “thin histories” and “thin attachments,” the two works open up spaces of deferral where a bitter besideness to dominant history can be rehearsed, and familial memory and kinship can be attenuated to give way to a feeling of lonely companionship grounded on fleeting moments of resemblance. In doing so, they articulate an understanding of remembrance as a process that goes beyond restoring what was lost, to offer migrant subjects the possibility of momentarily brushing against a plurality of lives without having to commit to fixed notions of identity or to the promise of community.