ABSTRACT
Border Theory is the field of study that acknowledges geographic border spaces, and notably, ideological, sociological, and identity borders, as unique spaces of exchange, expression, and transformation that emerged in the 1980s as a “new, multidisciplinary generation of border scholars”. Both Gloria Anzaldua and Mary L. Pratt conceived of the border and its related contact zone as a space policed by governmental powers at local, state, and federal levels, meant to control and separate the peoples that happen to reside on either side the border, which Anzaldua calls, “una herida abierta”—an open wound. Border studies used the consequences and subsequent theorization of the actual, geographic border between nations and apply those findings to other so-called “soft” borders that arise when examining the confluence and clash of cultures. Jose David Saldivar has further developed Anzaldua’s theorization of the borderlands as a site of resistance and change, of development and stagnation.
