«The Future Begins in 2020»: Narratives and Speculative Imaginaries in the Latin American (Sci-Fi) Audio Drama Podcasts Caso 63 (2020) and Número Oculto (2022)

Abstract

After international recognition from critics, the release of three seasons, and several adaptations to other languages, the fiction podcast Caso 63 (Chile, 2020) success is unprecedented for the podcasting industry produced in Spanish. Together with Número Oculto (Argentina, 2022), both are current paradigmatic cases for studying the new Latin American (sci-fi) audio drama podcasts. This paper proposes a comparative analysis of the first season of these audio series distributed by Spotify Studios to locate them as representative productions of the narratives and speculative imaginaries related to science fiction, such as post-eschatological futures, time travels, the global dominance of big tech companies, the environmental destruction (ecocide), quantum mysticism, among others. The proposal contextualizes these productions as part of the trends of audio drama produced in Spain in the last decade, the intermedial dialogues with the so-called "new Hispanic apocalyptic" literature, and the recent "awakening of podcasting” in Latin America after the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020. Finally, it concludes with a reflection on the platformization of cultural production and the future of (sci-fi) audio drama podcasts in the Hispanic world.