Ghosts of Dominican Past, Ghosts of Dominican Present

Abstract

This essay examines important contributions made by Dixa Ramírez’s book Colonial Phantoms: Belonging and Refusal in the Dominican Americas, from the 19th Century to the Present (2018) to Dominican, Caribbean, and African diaspora literary and cultural studies. It argues for amplifying the study of imperial and nationalist forms of misrecognition, which Ramírez calls “ghosting.” It also argues that a focus on past and present exercises of power as ghosting may permit a greater understanding of stealthy—if often ambivalent—forms of resistance to empire and nationalism.