Presented by Nayibe Bermudez-Barrios.

This article explores Henry Lefebvre’s theory of social space as a mediating force between capitalism and the imagined worlds it offers. According to Lefebvre, a mode of production is only affirmed as such and only merits this name if it has given rise to a space (and a social time) (217). Thus, and in response to discourses and institutional practices tied to global financial capitalism, or neoliberalism, the physical space of the represented city is transformed and compartmentalized. As Buenos Aires vies for the status of global city, able to accommodate and satisfy the needs of national and transnational companies, the very wealthy retreat into ‘country clubs’ or luxury-living housing quarters with golf courses, security guards, and other amenities. In Piñeiro’s novel, these enclaves function as satellites of the global city of neoliberalism, and as imagined worlds, in which affect, aesthetics, and ideology ‘enable collective life to live’ the illusion of transnationality.