Author: Eduardo Pavez

In Spanish, Entfremdung (alienation) was simultaneously translated as “alienación” and “enajenación”. While these terms are very close in meaning, “enajenación” is specifically related to emotions, for it is a person or collective’s transitory loss of reason or identity caused by an intense state of fear, anger or pain. This may serve to generate a spatial metaphor of a central “me” and a secondary peripheral “me” split apart by the overwhelming emotion. I know the old center-periphery concept has been replaced by cooler academic terminology nowadays, but allow me to use it with the enajenación process, understood in this particular...