Ewa Antoszek | Maria Curie - Skłodowska University (original) (raw)
Papers by Ewa Antoszek
Polish Journal for American Studies 18 (2024). 51-68, 2024
Polish Journal for American Studies 18 (2024), 2024
Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature. Vol 48, No 2 (2024), 2024
Res Rhetorica 11 (2): 101-18. , 2024
D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border t... more D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border that even though bordering practices have been studied from different perspectives, there is still “a lack of attention to the consummately rhetorical function of borders” (DeChaine 2012, 5), which can have serious consequences, as it “elides important questions about how people use borders to reinforce values, inculcate beliefs, mobilize attitudes, and provoke action” (DeChaine 2012, 6) or, in other words, how “symbolic ascriptions of the border function doxastically in public culture” (DeChaine 2012, 14), contributing to the creation of master narratives about the borders. The border doxa entailed in/propagated by those master narratives has been continually challenged by activists and artists, who have been questioning the validity of borders and their power to divide people, communities and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected examples of border artivism taking place on the U.S.-Mexico border and in the Mediterranean since the 2000s in order to show how those images and actions counter the border doxa and thereby influence the public’s perception of borders and migrants.
D. Robert DeChaine argumentuje w „Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border”, że chociaż praktyki graniczne były badane z różnych perspektyw, nadal „nie zwraca się uwagi na retoryczną funkcję granic” (DeChaine 2012, 5), co niesie za sobą poważne konsekwencje, ponieważ „pomija ważne pytania o to, jak ludzie wykorzystują granice do wzmacniania wartości, wpajania przekonań, mobilizowania postaw i prowokowania do działania” (DeChaine 2012, 6) lub, innymi słowy, jak „symboliczne atrybucje granicy funkcjonują doksastycznie w kulturze publicznej” (DeChaine 2012, 14), przyczyniając się do tworzenia głównych narracji o granicach. Doksa graniczna zawarta w/propagowana przez te główne narracje jest nieustannie kwestionowana przez aktywistów i artystów, którzy podważają zasadność granic wraz z ich zdolnością do podziałów między ludźmi, społecznościami i niszczeniem środowiska naturalnego. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zbadanie wybranych przykładów artystycznego aktywizmu z pogranicza meksykańsko-amerykańskiego oraz na Morzu Śródziemnym od 2000 roku, aby pokazać, jak te prace i działania przeciwstawiają się doksie pogranicza, a tym samym wpływają na postrzeganie granic i migrantów przez społeczeństwa.
DeChaine, D. Robert, ed. 2012. Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border. University of Alabama Press.
Keywords: the border doxa, The U.S.-Mexico border, border artivism;
Słowa kluczowe: doksa granicy, granica meksykańsko-amerykańska, artystyczna działalność społeczna
Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture: Building Bridges, Not Walls. Routledge, 2023. 134-149, 2023
In line with the main themes of the volume, the chapter analyzes anti-Latinx exclusionary practic... more In line with the main themes of the volume, the chapter analyzes anti-Latinx exclusionary practices as well as examples of solidarity with migrants challenging these practices, as presented in Ivannia Villalobos-Vindas’ Casa en tierra ajena (2016). The processes of othering of immigrants from Central America are examined from the perspective of Derrida’s concept of hostipitality and contextualized in the post-9/11 transformations of the U.S.-Mexico border, including anti-immigrant legislation in the U.S., growing militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border as well as changes taking place in the transit country of Mexico, which has contributed to the transformation of Mexico into the buffer zone, or the creation of the great south border. The examples of solidarity that challenge the above-mentioned practices of othering illustrate the transformation of illegal aliens into cosmopolitan strangers. These practices aim to reverse dehumanization the migrants experience during their journeys and in the U.S., provide them with safe spaces to tell their stories and establish contact zones that facilitate dialogue and cooperation. They also refer to the long history of migrations in the region thereby suggesting an alternative approach to migratory movements.
Keywords: the U.S.-Mexico border, the great south border, hostipitality, solidarity, conviviality, Casa en tierra ajena
Roczniki Humanistyczne Vol 70 No 11 (2022), 2022
The question of the U.S.-Mexico border has always been important for Latinx living in the U.S. an... more The question of the U.S.-Mexico border has always been important for Latinx living in the U.S. and its versatile roles as well as its influence on border crossers and the environment have been presented by various Latinx and non-Latinx authors and artists. Their artistic productions illustrate the transformations of space into a contact zone and challenge the rationale of the wall. They vary in form from immediate responses to those interventions undertaken with the privilege of preparation, i.e. time. The purpose of this article is to examine how those post-millennial re-visions of the border re-define the conflicted and contentious space of the U.S.-Mexico border and how the time-determined form of selected examples of post-2000 border artivism influences those transformations.
Keywords: the U.S.-Mexico border; border re-visions; border artivism;
Res Rhetorica 9 (2):121-37, 2022
D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border t... more D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border that even though bordering practices have been studied from different perspectives, there is still “a lack of attention to the consummately rhetorical function of borders” (DeChaine 2012, 5), which can have serious consequences, as it “elides important questions about how people use borders to reinforce values, inculcate beliefs, mobilize attitudes, and provoke action” (DeChaine 2012, 6) or, in other words, how “symbolic ascriptions of the border function doxastically in public culture” (DeChaine 2012, 14), contributing to the creation of master narratives about the borders. The border doxa entailed in/propagated by those master narratives has been continually challenged by activists and artists, who have been questioning the validity of borders and their power to divide people, communities and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected examples of border artivism taking place on the U.S.-Mexico border and in the Mediterranean since the 2000s in order to show how those images and actions counter the border doxa and thereby influence the public’s perception of borders and migrants.
D. Robert DeChaine argumentuje w „Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border”, że chociaż praktyki graniczne były badane z różnych perspektyw, nadal „nie zwraca się uwagi na retoryczną funkcję granic” (DeChaine 2012, 5), co niesie za sobą poważne konsekwencje, ponieważ „pomija ważne pytania o to, jak ludzie wykorzystują granice do wzmacniania wartości, wpajania przekonań, mobilizowania postaw i prowokowania do działania” (DeChaine 2012, 6) lub, innymi słowy, jak „symboliczne atrybucje granicy funkcjonują doksastycznie w kulturze publicznej” (DeChaine 2012, 14), przyczyniając się do tworzenia głównych narracji o granicach. Doksa graniczna zawarta w/propagowana przez te główne narracje jest nieustannie kwestionowana przez aktywistów i artystów, którzy podważają zasadność granic wraz z ich zdolnością do podziałów między ludźmi, społecznościami i niszczeniem środowiska naturalnego. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zbadanie wybranych przykładów artystycznego aktywizmu z pogranicza meksykańsko-amerykańskiego oraz na Morzu Śródziemnym od 2000 roku, aby pokazać, jak te prace i działania przeciwstawiają się doksie pogranicza, a tym samym wpływają na postrzeganie granic i migrantów przez społeczeństwa.
Latinidad at the Crossroads: Insights into Latinx Identity in the Twenty-First Century. , 2021
European Journal of American Studies, 2021
Immigration and the Expanding U.S. Southern Border: Casa en tierra ajena (2016). The question of ... more Immigration and the Expanding U.S. Southern Border: Casa en tierra ajena (2016). The question of the U.S.-Mexico border has been discussed extensively by various media in different contexts, particularly within the last few years and the focus of those publications has ranged from legislative issues, through militarization of the border and the resulting criminalization of migrants to the growing number of deportations and conditions in detention centers. Those exemplary cases of border stories related recently in the media signal the shift in immigration patterns from Central America and consequences of those changes for the whole region. They also demonstrate the trajectory of transformations at the U.S.-Mexico border, including the change of the concept of the border from la línea separating two nation-states into an ever-expanding zone that exceeds political lines and turns Mexico into the great south border. These issues are discussed in the documentary Casa en tierra ajena or Home in a Foreign Land (2016) directed by Ivannia Villalobos-Vindas and the purpose of the article is to examine how Villalobos-Vindas addresses the complexity of the process of forced migration from Central America and to analyze how the documentary illustrates the appearance of the expanding border or the transformation of the U.S.-Mexico political line into the great south border, as it is often called.
full text: https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/16822
El Mundo Zurdo 7: Selected Works from the 2018 Meeting of the Society for the Study of Gloria An... more El Mundo Zurdo 7: Selected Works from the 2018 Meeting of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua. eds. Sara A Ramirez, Larissa M Mercado-Lopez, Sonia Saldivar-Hull. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2019.
Polish Journal for American Studies, Vol. 13 (Spring 2019). pp. 91-100.
https://www.resrhetorica.com/index.php/RR/issue/view/16
Res Rhetorica, 2018
https://resrhetorica.com/index.php/RR/article/view/282 an abstract: Even though border scholars ... more https://resrhetorica.com/index.php/RR/article/view/282
an abstract: Even though border scholars have for a long time reached a consensus regarding arbitrariness of borders as artificial human constructs, it seems that in the second decade of the twenty-first century " political borders separating peoples remain pervasive and problematic " (Ganster 2016, xv). Globalization and people's flows at the beginning of the twenty-first century both opened some borders to international trade or services and at the same time turned other borders into almost completely impenetrable territories with its status reinforced by legislation and militarization, with the U.S.-Mexican border as the best example of the play between those antagonistic forces pulling together and pushing apart at the same time people and spaces on both sides of the border. As such the U.S.-Mexico border " provides a paradigmatic case of global border development " (2016, xvi) and hence the purpose of this paper is to analyze how the transformations of the concept of the border that took place at the turn of the 20 th and 21 st centuries are reflected in American popular media on the basis of the TV series, The Bridge (2013-2014). In addition, the article will also examine the way the region is presented in the series, thus creating specific borderlands tales and contributing to the scholarship on the border. key words: the U.S.-Mexico border, borderlands, The Bridge, border crossers, interdependent borderlands, immigrants, cartels
Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature 41(2), 2017, pp. 98-111., 2017
http://journals.umcs.pl/lsmll/article/view/5116
An abstract: The border with its multiple roles and interpretations has always played an importan... more An abstract: The border with its multiple roles and interpretations has always played an important role in Chicana and Latina discourse in the U.S.. Redefinitions and redesigns of spatial paradigms that took place in the second half of the 20 th century resulted in proliferation of border imagery in literature that presented complex roles of the border. The aforementioned transformations were reflected in the shift of focus in Chicana discourse on the spatial, from location to mobility, " from land to roads " (Kaup 200). This shift in turn, led to alterative constructions of space and remappings of geographic locations that included creation of in-between spaces and rewriting of the border from a demarcation line into a contact zone. Due to the interdependence between space and identity formation, the new concepts of the border predetermine a different approach towards Chicana identity formation. Contemporary Chicana literature often focuses on roads rather than dwellings (Kaup 228) and discusses the issue of identity formation construed in in-between spaces. Chicana authors often examine the experience of nomadic subjects traveling both within the U.S. and/or Mexico or crossing the border, presenting multiple reasons behind such travels, as well as different experiences and outcomes resulting from these journeys. The purpose of this article is to analyze how the redefinitions of the border are reflected in Reyna Grande's The Distance Between Us: A Memoir and how border crossings presented by the author contribute to the displacement of the main character and her family, triggering the notion of simultaneously belonging and unbelonging, or becoming " Othered, " which results in the construction of transnational identities. Streszczenie: Granica wraz z różnymi jej rolami oraz interpretacjami zawsze odgrywała znaczącą rolę w dyskrusie latynoskim i autorek pochodzenia meksykańskiego w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Zmiany definicji paradygmatów przestrzennych, które pojawiały się od połowy wieku dwudziestego, zaowocowały różnorodnymi przedstawieniami granicy w literaturze, która zaczęła odzwierciedlać wielorakie role, jakie ta granica odgrywała. Jednym z rezultatów tychże zmian było przeniesienie uwagi w dyskursie przestrzennym z położenia/lokalizacji na mobilność, " z ziemi/terytorium na drogi/trasy " (Kaup 200). Ta zmiana z kolei doprowadziła do powstania alternatywnych koncepcji przestrzennych oraz przedefiniowania lokalizacji geograficznych, przyczyniając się między innymi do pojawienia się pojęcia przestrzeni istniejących pomiędzy innymi przestrzeniami (z ang. in-between spaces) oraz do zmiany w przedstawianiu granicy – od linii demarkacyjnej do strefy kontaktu. Biorąc pod uwagę współzależność między przestrzenią a konstruowaniem tożsamości, nowe pojęcia granicy miały wpływ na tożsamość Chicana. Współczesna literatura Chicana (autorek pochodzenia meksykańskiego w Stanach Zjednoczonych) często przedstawia drogi i trasy zamiast domów i mieszkań (Kaup 228) oraz zajmuje się kwestią budowania tożsamości w
The question of identity formation has always been central to the writings and cultural productio... more The question of identity formation has always been central to the writings and cultural productions of representatives of ethnic minorities, since as marginalized or muted groups they have had to find a discourse that would allow their stories to be voiced, and to describe their experiences. Therefore, the discussion on the issue of ethnic identity has been reflected in various artistic and cultural productions, including theater, popular art, music, films, and other forms of artistic expression that have illustrated "emergent new visions and versions of identity and culture" (Ybarra-Frausto xvii). Those "newer narratives and constructions of self and community," as Ybara-Frausto observes, "[a]s opposed to traditional stories stressing coherence, totality, and closure, . . . opt for processes of cross-referencing between locations and multiple inflections of identity" (xvii) and thus create an "alter-Native culture" (Gaspar de Alba xxi) that reinforces the complexity and fluidity of ethnic identities and acknowledges multiple variables that influence the process of their construction, which are illustrated by works and performances of different artists who focus on diverse aspects of the process.
abstract: Allison Anders in Mi Vida Loca (1993) presents various aspects of gang life: from becom... more abstract: Allison Anders in Mi Vida Loca (1993) presents various aspects of gang life: from becoming a gang member, through various examples of female sisterhood and betrayal. Not resorting to gangxploitation, Mi Vida Loca is the " first commercial film to focus entirely on Chicana gang members " (Fregoso 97). Anders's project, well-grounded and well-designed, attempts to do away with numerous stereotypes concerning homegirls in L.A. and to portray a credible picture of gang life in Echo Park. At the same time, Anders's approach is relatively " partial in its one-sided view of la vida loca, " which inevitably leads to further stereotyping of Chicana homegirls (Fregoso 97). The purpose of the article is to analyze assets and disadvantages of Anders's representation of Chicana female gang members focusing on the dynamics of the interplay between Hollywood (i.e. Anders's project) and the barrio—in that case Echo Park, L.A.
The transformations of the concept of the border have been reflected in the Chicana discourse on ... more The transformations of the concept of the border have been reflected in the Chicana discourse on the spatial and its shift, from location to mobility.. This shift in turn led to the rewriting of the border from the line into a contact zone. Due to the interdependence between space and identity formation, the construction of the border as a contact zone predetermines a new approach towards Chicana identity formation. Contemporary Chicana literature often discusses the issue of identity formation construed in in-between spaces. Chicana authors examine the experience of nomadic subjects traveling both within the U.S. and/or Mexico or crossing the border. The purpose of this article is to analyze how the transformations of the border concept are presented in Reyna Grande's Across a Hundred Mountains and how the author represents the creation of transnational and transitional identity of Juana/Adelina that leads to the appearance of intersectional sites and localities.
Space as a conceptual tool has been neglected for a long time or treated only in geographical ter... more Space as a conceptual tool has been neglected for a long time or treated only in geographical terms. When used to describe identity and identity formation processes it was regarded as subservient to historicality and sociality, or reduced to geographical/territorial variable functioning as a background solely. However, the transformations in the scholarship on space taking place during the second half of the 20 th century both (re)introduced space into the critical discourse and provided alternative readings of space that did away with bicameral logic of spatial thinking. As Edward Soja observes, Contemporary critical studies have experienced a significant spatial turn. In what may be seen as one of the most important intellectual and political developments in the late twentieth century, scholars have begun to interpret space and the spatiality of human life with the same critical insight and emphasis that has traditionally been given to time and history on the one hand, and to social relations and society on the other. (Cover) This way the spatial variable began to be deployed in various contexts and its importance as a conceptual tool has been developing ever since.
Polish Journal for American Studies 18 (2024). 51-68, 2024
Polish Journal for American Studies 18 (2024), 2024
Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature. Vol 48, No 2 (2024), 2024
Res Rhetorica 11 (2): 101-18. , 2024
D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border t... more D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border that even though bordering practices have been studied from different perspectives, there is still “a lack of attention to the consummately rhetorical function of borders” (DeChaine 2012, 5), which can have serious consequences, as it “elides important questions about how people use borders to reinforce values, inculcate beliefs, mobilize attitudes, and provoke action” (DeChaine 2012, 6) or, in other words, how “symbolic ascriptions of the border function doxastically in public culture” (DeChaine 2012, 14), contributing to the creation of master narratives about the borders. The border doxa entailed in/propagated by those master narratives has been continually challenged by activists and artists, who have been questioning the validity of borders and their power to divide people, communities and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected examples of border artivism taking place on the U.S.-Mexico border and in the Mediterranean since the 2000s in order to show how those images and actions counter the border doxa and thereby influence the public’s perception of borders and migrants.
D. Robert DeChaine argumentuje w „Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border”, że chociaż praktyki graniczne były badane z różnych perspektyw, nadal „nie zwraca się uwagi na retoryczną funkcję granic” (DeChaine 2012, 5), co niesie za sobą poważne konsekwencje, ponieważ „pomija ważne pytania o to, jak ludzie wykorzystują granice do wzmacniania wartości, wpajania przekonań, mobilizowania postaw i prowokowania do działania” (DeChaine 2012, 6) lub, innymi słowy, jak „symboliczne atrybucje granicy funkcjonują doksastycznie w kulturze publicznej” (DeChaine 2012, 14), przyczyniając się do tworzenia głównych narracji o granicach. Doksa graniczna zawarta w/propagowana przez te główne narracje jest nieustannie kwestionowana przez aktywistów i artystów, którzy podważają zasadność granic wraz z ich zdolnością do podziałów między ludźmi, społecznościami i niszczeniem środowiska naturalnego. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zbadanie wybranych przykładów artystycznego aktywizmu z pogranicza meksykańsko-amerykańskiego oraz na Morzu Śródziemnym od 2000 roku, aby pokazać, jak te prace i działania przeciwstawiają się doksie pogranicza, a tym samym wpływają na postrzeganie granic i migrantów przez społeczeństwa.
DeChaine, D. Robert, ed. 2012. Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border. University of Alabama Press.
Keywords: the border doxa, The U.S.-Mexico border, border artivism;
Słowa kluczowe: doksa granicy, granica meksykańsko-amerykańska, artystyczna działalność społeczna
Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture: Building Bridges, Not Walls. Routledge, 2023. 134-149, 2023
In line with the main themes of the volume, the chapter analyzes anti-Latinx exclusionary practic... more In line with the main themes of the volume, the chapter analyzes anti-Latinx exclusionary practices as well as examples of solidarity with migrants challenging these practices, as presented in Ivannia Villalobos-Vindas’ Casa en tierra ajena (2016). The processes of othering of immigrants from Central America are examined from the perspective of Derrida’s concept of hostipitality and contextualized in the post-9/11 transformations of the U.S.-Mexico border, including anti-immigrant legislation in the U.S., growing militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border as well as changes taking place in the transit country of Mexico, which has contributed to the transformation of Mexico into the buffer zone, or the creation of the great south border. The examples of solidarity that challenge the above-mentioned practices of othering illustrate the transformation of illegal aliens into cosmopolitan strangers. These practices aim to reverse dehumanization the migrants experience during their journeys and in the U.S., provide them with safe spaces to tell their stories and establish contact zones that facilitate dialogue and cooperation. They also refer to the long history of migrations in the region thereby suggesting an alternative approach to migratory movements.
Keywords: the U.S.-Mexico border, the great south border, hostipitality, solidarity, conviviality, Casa en tierra ajena
Roczniki Humanistyczne Vol 70 No 11 (2022), 2022
The question of the U.S.-Mexico border has always been important for Latinx living in the U.S. an... more The question of the U.S.-Mexico border has always been important for Latinx living in the U.S. and its versatile roles as well as its influence on border crossers and the environment have been presented by various Latinx and non-Latinx authors and artists. Their artistic productions illustrate the transformations of space into a contact zone and challenge the rationale of the wall. They vary in form from immediate responses to those interventions undertaken with the privilege of preparation, i.e. time. The purpose of this article is to examine how those post-millennial re-visions of the border re-define the conflicted and contentious space of the U.S.-Mexico border and how the time-determined form of selected examples of post-2000 border artivism influences those transformations.
Keywords: the U.S.-Mexico border; border re-visions; border artivism;
Res Rhetorica 9 (2):121-37, 2022
D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border t... more D. Robert DeChaine argues in Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border that even though bordering practices have been studied from different perspectives, there is still “a lack of attention to the consummately rhetorical function of borders” (DeChaine 2012, 5), which can have serious consequences, as it “elides important questions about how people use borders to reinforce values, inculcate beliefs, mobilize attitudes, and provoke action” (DeChaine 2012, 6) or, in other words, how “symbolic ascriptions of the border function doxastically in public culture” (DeChaine 2012, 14), contributing to the creation of master narratives about the borders. The border doxa entailed in/propagated by those master narratives has been continually challenged by activists and artists, who have been questioning the validity of borders and their power to divide people, communities and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected examples of border artivism taking place on the U.S.-Mexico border and in the Mediterranean since the 2000s in order to show how those images and actions counter the border doxa and thereby influence the public’s perception of borders and migrants.
D. Robert DeChaine argumentuje w „Border Rhetorics: Citizenship and Identity on the US-Mexico Border”, że chociaż praktyki graniczne były badane z różnych perspektyw, nadal „nie zwraca się uwagi na retoryczną funkcję granic” (DeChaine 2012, 5), co niesie za sobą poważne konsekwencje, ponieważ „pomija ważne pytania o to, jak ludzie wykorzystują granice do wzmacniania wartości, wpajania przekonań, mobilizowania postaw i prowokowania do działania” (DeChaine 2012, 6) lub, innymi słowy, jak „symboliczne atrybucje granicy funkcjonują doksastycznie w kulturze publicznej” (DeChaine 2012, 14), przyczyniając się do tworzenia głównych narracji o granicach. Doksa graniczna zawarta w/propagowana przez te główne narracje jest nieustannie kwestionowana przez aktywistów i artystów, którzy podważają zasadność granic wraz z ich zdolnością do podziałów między ludźmi, społecznościami i niszczeniem środowiska naturalnego. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zbadanie wybranych przykładów artystycznego aktywizmu z pogranicza meksykańsko-amerykańskiego oraz na Morzu Śródziemnym od 2000 roku, aby pokazać, jak te prace i działania przeciwstawiają się doksie pogranicza, a tym samym wpływają na postrzeganie granic i migrantów przez społeczeństwa.
Latinidad at the Crossroads: Insights into Latinx Identity in the Twenty-First Century. , 2021
European Journal of American Studies, 2021
Immigration and the Expanding U.S. Southern Border: Casa en tierra ajena (2016). The question of ... more Immigration and the Expanding U.S. Southern Border: Casa en tierra ajena (2016). The question of the U.S.-Mexico border has been discussed extensively by various media in different contexts, particularly within the last few years and the focus of those publications has ranged from legislative issues, through militarization of the border and the resulting criminalization of migrants to the growing number of deportations and conditions in detention centers. Those exemplary cases of border stories related recently in the media signal the shift in immigration patterns from Central America and consequences of those changes for the whole region. They also demonstrate the trajectory of transformations at the U.S.-Mexico border, including the change of the concept of the border from la línea separating two nation-states into an ever-expanding zone that exceeds political lines and turns Mexico into the great south border. These issues are discussed in the documentary Casa en tierra ajena or Home in a Foreign Land (2016) directed by Ivannia Villalobos-Vindas and the purpose of the article is to examine how Villalobos-Vindas addresses the complexity of the process of forced migration from Central America and to analyze how the documentary illustrates the appearance of the expanding border or the transformation of the U.S.-Mexico political line into the great south border, as it is often called.
full text: https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/16822
El Mundo Zurdo 7: Selected Works from the 2018 Meeting of the Society for the Study of Gloria An... more El Mundo Zurdo 7: Selected Works from the 2018 Meeting of the Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldua. eds. Sara A Ramirez, Larissa M Mercado-Lopez, Sonia Saldivar-Hull. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2019.
Polish Journal for American Studies, Vol. 13 (Spring 2019). pp. 91-100.
https://www.resrhetorica.com/index.php/RR/issue/view/16
Res Rhetorica, 2018
https://resrhetorica.com/index.php/RR/article/view/282 an abstract: Even though border scholars ... more https://resrhetorica.com/index.php/RR/article/view/282
an abstract: Even though border scholars have for a long time reached a consensus regarding arbitrariness of borders as artificial human constructs, it seems that in the second decade of the twenty-first century " political borders separating peoples remain pervasive and problematic " (Ganster 2016, xv). Globalization and people's flows at the beginning of the twenty-first century both opened some borders to international trade or services and at the same time turned other borders into almost completely impenetrable territories with its status reinforced by legislation and militarization, with the U.S.-Mexican border as the best example of the play between those antagonistic forces pulling together and pushing apart at the same time people and spaces on both sides of the border. As such the U.S.-Mexico border " provides a paradigmatic case of global border development " (2016, xvi) and hence the purpose of this paper is to analyze how the transformations of the concept of the border that took place at the turn of the 20 th and 21 st centuries are reflected in American popular media on the basis of the TV series, The Bridge (2013-2014). In addition, the article will also examine the way the region is presented in the series, thus creating specific borderlands tales and contributing to the scholarship on the border. key words: the U.S.-Mexico border, borderlands, The Bridge, border crossers, interdependent borderlands, immigrants, cartels
Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature 41(2), 2017, pp. 98-111., 2017
http://journals.umcs.pl/lsmll/article/view/5116
An abstract: The border with its multiple roles and interpretations has always played an importan... more An abstract: The border with its multiple roles and interpretations has always played an important role in Chicana and Latina discourse in the U.S.. Redefinitions and redesigns of spatial paradigms that took place in the second half of the 20 th century resulted in proliferation of border imagery in literature that presented complex roles of the border. The aforementioned transformations were reflected in the shift of focus in Chicana discourse on the spatial, from location to mobility, " from land to roads " (Kaup 200). This shift in turn, led to alterative constructions of space and remappings of geographic locations that included creation of in-between spaces and rewriting of the border from a demarcation line into a contact zone. Due to the interdependence between space and identity formation, the new concepts of the border predetermine a different approach towards Chicana identity formation. Contemporary Chicana literature often focuses on roads rather than dwellings (Kaup 228) and discusses the issue of identity formation construed in in-between spaces. Chicana authors often examine the experience of nomadic subjects traveling both within the U.S. and/or Mexico or crossing the border, presenting multiple reasons behind such travels, as well as different experiences and outcomes resulting from these journeys. The purpose of this article is to analyze how the redefinitions of the border are reflected in Reyna Grande's The Distance Between Us: A Memoir and how border crossings presented by the author contribute to the displacement of the main character and her family, triggering the notion of simultaneously belonging and unbelonging, or becoming " Othered, " which results in the construction of transnational identities. Streszczenie: Granica wraz z różnymi jej rolami oraz interpretacjami zawsze odgrywała znaczącą rolę w dyskrusie latynoskim i autorek pochodzenia meksykańskiego w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Zmiany definicji paradygmatów przestrzennych, które pojawiały się od połowy wieku dwudziestego, zaowocowały różnorodnymi przedstawieniami granicy w literaturze, która zaczęła odzwierciedlać wielorakie role, jakie ta granica odgrywała. Jednym z rezultatów tychże zmian było przeniesienie uwagi w dyskursie przestrzennym z położenia/lokalizacji na mobilność, " z ziemi/terytorium na drogi/trasy " (Kaup 200). Ta zmiana z kolei doprowadziła do powstania alternatywnych koncepcji przestrzennych oraz przedefiniowania lokalizacji geograficznych, przyczyniając się między innymi do pojawienia się pojęcia przestrzeni istniejących pomiędzy innymi przestrzeniami (z ang. in-between spaces) oraz do zmiany w przedstawianiu granicy – od linii demarkacyjnej do strefy kontaktu. Biorąc pod uwagę współzależność między przestrzenią a konstruowaniem tożsamości, nowe pojęcia granicy miały wpływ na tożsamość Chicana. Współczesna literatura Chicana (autorek pochodzenia meksykańskiego w Stanach Zjednoczonych) często przedstawia drogi i trasy zamiast domów i mieszkań (Kaup 228) oraz zajmuje się kwestią budowania tożsamości w
The question of identity formation has always been central to the writings and cultural productio... more The question of identity formation has always been central to the writings and cultural productions of representatives of ethnic minorities, since as marginalized or muted groups they have had to find a discourse that would allow their stories to be voiced, and to describe their experiences. Therefore, the discussion on the issue of ethnic identity has been reflected in various artistic and cultural productions, including theater, popular art, music, films, and other forms of artistic expression that have illustrated "emergent new visions and versions of identity and culture" (Ybarra-Frausto xvii). Those "newer narratives and constructions of self and community," as Ybara-Frausto observes, "[a]s opposed to traditional stories stressing coherence, totality, and closure, . . . opt for processes of cross-referencing between locations and multiple inflections of identity" (xvii) and thus create an "alter-Native culture" (Gaspar de Alba xxi) that reinforces the complexity and fluidity of ethnic identities and acknowledges multiple variables that influence the process of their construction, which are illustrated by works and performances of different artists who focus on diverse aspects of the process.
abstract: Allison Anders in Mi Vida Loca (1993) presents various aspects of gang life: from becom... more abstract: Allison Anders in Mi Vida Loca (1993) presents various aspects of gang life: from becoming a gang member, through various examples of female sisterhood and betrayal. Not resorting to gangxploitation, Mi Vida Loca is the " first commercial film to focus entirely on Chicana gang members " (Fregoso 97). Anders's project, well-grounded and well-designed, attempts to do away with numerous stereotypes concerning homegirls in L.A. and to portray a credible picture of gang life in Echo Park. At the same time, Anders's approach is relatively " partial in its one-sided view of la vida loca, " which inevitably leads to further stereotyping of Chicana homegirls (Fregoso 97). The purpose of the article is to analyze assets and disadvantages of Anders's representation of Chicana female gang members focusing on the dynamics of the interplay between Hollywood (i.e. Anders's project) and the barrio—in that case Echo Park, L.A.
The transformations of the concept of the border have been reflected in the Chicana discourse on ... more The transformations of the concept of the border have been reflected in the Chicana discourse on the spatial and its shift, from location to mobility.. This shift in turn led to the rewriting of the border from the line into a contact zone. Due to the interdependence between space and identity formation, the construction of the border as a contact zone predetermines a new approach towards Chicana identity formation. Contemporary Chicana literature often discusses the issue of identity formation construed in in-between spaces. Chicana authors examine the experience of nomadic subjects traveling both within the U.S. and/or Mexico or crossing the border. The purpose of this article is to analyze how the transformations of the border concept are presented in Reyna Grande's Across a Hundred Mountains and how the author represents the creation of transnational and transitional identity of Juana/Adelina that leads to the appearance of intersectional sites and localities.
Space as a conceptual tool has been neglected for a long time or treated only in geographical ter... more Space as a conceptual tool has been neglected for a long time or treated only in geographical terms. When used to describe identity and identity formation processes it was regarded as subservient to historicality and sociality, or reduced to geographical/territorial variable functioning as a background solely. However, the transformations in the scholarship on space taking place during the second half of the 20 th century both (re)introduced space into the critical discourse and provided alternative readings of space that did away with bicameral logic of spatial thinking. As Edward Soja observes, Contemporary critical studies have experienced a significant spatial turn. In what may be seen as one of the most important intellectual and political developments in the late twentieth century, scholars have begun to interpret space and the spatiality of human life with the same critical insight and emphasis that has traditionally been given to time and history on the one hand, and to social relations and society on the other. (Cover) This way the spatial variable began to be deployed in various contexts and its importance as a conceptual tool has been developing ever since.
Social Movements and Empowerment analyze the trajectories of the spatial turn taking place from m... more Social Movements and Empowerment analyze the trajectories of the spatial turn taking place from mid-20 th century onwards which has resulted in the appearance of new ways of assessing spatiality as well as new definitions of spatial concepts. Even though the two volumes are not a continuation per se, both books are co-authored by Ana M a Manzanas and Jesús Benito and the more recent Occupying Space complements and completes the issues discussed in Cities, Borders, and Spaces, which suggests continuity between the publications and encourages to read them as complementary. In Cities, Borders, and Spaces Manzanas and Benito argue that the " alleged new spatial turn of American exceptionalism has always been there " (2) but due to the redefinitions of spatial concepts allowed by post-prefixed theories, new spatial definitions do away with dichotomous oppositions and thus lend themselves to " plurality and openness " (6) as well as reflect the shift from stasis to mobility, activity, and heterogeneity. Consequently, the authors account for the complexity of the discipline, evoking numerous scholars who have contributed to different definitions of spatiality – including, among others,
