ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 of the Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity, Tarin, Upton, and Sowards theorize the complexities of identity in a border landscape fraught with numerous conflicting dualistic tensions – U.S./Mexico, English/Spanish, city/desert, culture/nature, human/more-than-human, straight/queer, and citizen/non-citizen. Whereas the boundaries of these identities are patrolled and policed (both literally and symbolically), the border also provides a unique lens for understanding how (seemingly) oppositional tensions can both conflict and converge in order to (re)create transformative perceptions and praxis. In developing their arguments, the authors take up Anzaldúa’s (1987) concept of the nepantlera, an individual who inhabits the liminal in-between space produced by borders, to begin theorizing ecocultural identity in the borderland. The claims in this chapter animate environmental nepantlisma as a ‘geography of self’ that simultaneously constrains and enables possible modes of thought and practice. This chapter contributes to a broader understanding of ecocultural identity by examining ways borderland theory can provide a framework for understanding ecocultural identity as transitory, in flux, bounded, and constantly negotiated through themes of alluvial diffusions, resistance, and resilience.
