Los pichiciegos on Sovereignty, Decolonization, and Democracy in the Falklands/Malvinas

This article analyzes the key terms in the ongoing sovereignty debate over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands through a reading of Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill's classic novel Los pichiciegos: Visiones de una batalla subterránea. I argue against critical interpretations of the novel as anti-war and counter-foundational, finding that the novel reproduces sovereignty underground instead of resisting it. I examine this thesis through competing, seemingly irreconcilable claims to sovereignty: Argentina's arguments for decolonization and Britain's arguments for self-determination. In fiction, Fogwill miniaturizes and allegorizes these concepts, borrowing from Argentine dictatorship and Thatcherite discourses. He exposes the concept of sovereignty as the link between the internal Dirty War and external Malvinas War and between dictatorship and post-dictatorship politics and economics. I argue that Fogwill also provides a way to begin considering the legacy of sovereignty after globalization's move away from the nation-state. Re-visiting the novel makes the reader question the key terms of debate—decolonization and self-determination—and look beyond sovereign territory and the nation, suggesting a renewal of democracy.