About

"This interdisciplinary creative writing project harnesses Latin American Horror and the short story form to explore the experiences of transnational and rural-urban Mexican migrant domestic workers, whose bodies and lives are rendered disposable by neoliberal and patriarchal systems. Through the genre's affective power, it exposes the physical and emotional tolls of oppressive domestic workspaces, revealing how these workers endure intersecting violences. The project illuminates systemic inequalities while demonstrating horror fiction’s potential as a space for resistance and solidarity.

The first outcome will be a comparative analysis of Latin American Horror texts through the lenses of Social Reproduction Theory and Decolonial Feminism. Drawing on critical scholarship of Françoise Vergès, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Veronica Gago, among others, I will develop an interpretive framework to examine how horror fiction represents racialised bodily exploitation, the persistence of colonial power structures, and the crisis of care. Through the analysis of works by Alia Trabucco-Zerán, Carmen María Machado, Fernanda Melchor, Maria Fernanda Ampuero, and Mariana Enriquez, I will identify how horror elements and narrative techniques reveal these systemic oppressions, subsequently applying these strategies to my creative writing. By integrating these literary strategies with domestic workers’ lived experiences, my research expands the Latin American Horror canon, illuminating deliberately hidden forms of exploitation and bodily violence.

The findings will inform the creative component: an interconnected collection of short stories centred on Mexican domestic workers facing abuse while migrating in search of domestic and care work. Through the polyphonic possibilities of the horror short story form, my collection will map connections between different manifestations of violence while highlighting emergent solidarities and modes of resistance. Through this critical-creative integration, this project asks: ""How can Latin American Horror fiction expose the oppressive realities of gendered domestic work and advance discussions on its critical importance in sustaining everyday life?”"