Excesses, Resisting Interpretation, and the Negative in Three Latin American Imaginaries

Abstract This article will explore three ethnographies—of Brazilian Umbanda, Cuban espiritismo , and Chilean ufology—whose cosmoses are variably self-referential, paradoxical, and absurd. I follow their anti-logics and argue that they exhibit, firstly, an excess, and secondly, a resistance to interpretation. Taking my concept of excess from Marisol de la Cadena, and of resisting interpretation from Susan Sontag, I argue that a radical version of resisting interpretation must go beyond experience and describe ontological evacuation itself—a ‘nothingness’ that holds all possibilities simultaneously; or an excess that contradicts either-or logics. I suggest we look at both the horror narrative and apophatic mysticism, which resist thought itself, as well as language, for a heuristic that is able to deal with ethnographies that defy logics of meaning or common sense.