This book presents inter-disciplinary research on contemporary borders with contributions from scholars and cultural practitioners located in different contexts in the Americas and South Asia. There has been significant sociological work on borders; however there is a relative dearth of humanities research on contemporary border realities, particularly in South Asia.
This volume introduces frameworks of critical insights and knowledge on border narratives and cultural productions. It addresses and goes beyond the impact of the partition in South Asia to train a unique comparative and aesthetic lens on borders and borderlands in relation to Latin America and the U.S.A. through oral narratives, photographs, ‘objects’, films, theatre, journals, and songs. It maps border perspectives and their reception in a framework of cultural politics. It revolves around themes such as violence and modes of survival; women’s narratives of migration, trafficking and incarceration; abduction of children; vulnerability as experience; rationalities of mass killings; and proliferation of countercultures to map border perspectives in a framework of cultural politics.
First of its kind, the volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of comparative literary and cultural studies, South Asian studies, Latin American studies, border studies, arts and aesthetics, visual studies, sociology, comparative politics, international relations, and peace and conflict resolution studies.
Author(s): Debaroti Chakraborty, Debra A. Castillo, Kavita Panjabi
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 265
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Figures
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Note
References
Part I Oral Narratives: Experiencing Violence, Forging Modes of Survival
1 Mobility Across Borders, Continuums of Violence and Resistance
Conceptualizing Violence
Narratives of Violence
Resistance and Love of Survival
Conclusion
Notes
References
Further Reading
2 Defying the Nation: Women’s Narratives of U.S.–Mexico and India–Bangladesh ‘Border’ Crossings
Towards a Methodology of Understanding ‘Bordered Subjectivity’
Affect, Experience, and Truth: Close Readings of Oral Narratives
‘Bordered Subjectivity’ in the Context of Border Theorizations
Note
References
Further Reading
Part II Photography: The Ethics of ‘Evidence’ and Erasure/Elision
3 Abduction/Oblivion: Villafuerte’s Por El Lado Salvaje
Notes
4 Witnessing and the Transformation of Self: Borders and the Violence of ‘Evidence’
Introduction
Photography: ‘Anaesthetization By Evidence’
Truth Telling
Witnessing Versus Viewing
Note
References
Part III Cinematic Representations: Vulnerability as Experience and Metaphor
5 The Atlantic Borderlands: Container Politics, Social Death, and the Countercultures of Mexican Migrants
Notes
References
6 What Is the Kid Doing at the Border?: Some Thoughts On Representations of Children in Indian and Latin American Border-Themed Cinema
Notes
References
Part IV Audio/Visual Languages of Perception: Humour and Satire – Subversion as Resistance
7 Humourizing Tension: Bengali Identity, Partition, and Borders
I
Ghoti and Bāngāl: Constructing a Cultural Binary
Lost in Laughter: Bāngāl Language and Its Linguistic ‘Incompetence’
II
‘Laughter’ and ‘Unlaughter’: Subjectivity And/or Assertion of Bāngāl Identity
Notes
References
8 Chhitmahal: Subjectivity, Resistance, and Identities
Notes
Bibliography
Part V Songs: Transformations of Identity Across Borders
9 Songs of Crossings: Searching for Ways of Listening to Arnold Bake’s 1934 Recordings of Sailors From Bengal
The 1934 Recordings
Go, Tell Him How She Burns in His Absence
Changed Place-Name, Unchanged Song
Crossing From One Home to Another: of Bari, Basha, Ghar, and Astana
All Singers Are Sailors
Notes
10 Surmounting Borders: The Corridos of Jenni Rivera
Death as ‘A Completion of the Persona’.
Fiction and Autobiography
The Habitus of Jenni Rivera: ‘Chicago Lindo Y Querido’
The Ethical Conundrums of Jenni Rivera’s Narcocorridos
The Legacy
Notes
References
Part VI Performance: Challenging Rationalities of Mass Killings
11 What Is Lost and Regained in Staging Violent Realities: Thinking of Dear Earth…Hope You Are Keeping Well!
Part I
Part II
Notes
References
Further Reading
12 Teatro Travieso and the Performance of Feminicide in Women of Ciudad Juárez
Background History
Staging the Show
The Play
The Tour
Conclusions
Appendix
Notes
Index
