ABSTRACT

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.

part I|39 pages

Oral Narratives

chapter 2|21 pages

Defying the Nation

Women's Narratives of U.S.–Mexico and India–Bangladesh ‘Border' Crossings

part II|26 pages

Photography

chapter 3|15 pages

Abduction/Oblivion

Villafuerte's Por el lado salvaje

chapter 4|9 pages

Witnessing and the Transformation of Self

Borders and the Violence of ‘Evidence'

part III|33 pages

Cinematic Representations

chapter 5|21 pages

The Atlantic Borderlands

Container Politics, Social Death, and the Countercultures of Mexican Migrants

chapter 6|10 pages

What Is the Kid Doing at the Border?

Some Thoughts on Representations of Children in Indian and Latin American Border-Themed Cinema

part IV|28 pages

Audio/Visual Languages of Perception

chapter 7|13 pages

Humourizing Tension

Bengali Identity, Partition, and Borders

chapter 8|13 pages

Chhitmahal

Subjectivity, Resistance, and Identities

part V|46 pages

Songs

chapter 9|25 pages

Songs of Crossings

Searching for Ways of Listening to Arnold Bake's 1934 Recordings of Sailors from Bengal

chapter 10|19 pages

Surmounting Borders

The Corridos of Jenni Rivera

part VI|48 pages

Performance