Centering Borders in Latin American and South Asian Contexts: Aesthetics and Politics of Cultural Production

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.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I: Oral Narratives: Experiencing Violence, Forging Modes of Survival 1. Mobility across Borders, Continuums of Violence and Resistance 2. Defying the Nation: Women’s Narratives of US–Mexico and India–Bangladesh ‘Border’ Crossings Part II: Photography: The Ethics of ‘Evidence’ and Erasure/Elision 3. Abduction/Oblivion: Villafuerte’s Por el lado salvaje 4. Witnessing and the Transformation of Self: Borders and The Violence of ‘Evidence’ Part III: Cinematic Representations: Vulnerability as Experience and Metaphor 5. The Atlantic Borderlands: Container Politics, Social Death and the Countercultures of Mexican Migrants 6. What is the Kid Doing at the Border? Some Thoughts on Representations of Children in Indian and Latin American Border-themed Cinema Part IV: Audio-/Visual Languages of Perception: Humour and Satire — Subversion as Resistance 7. Humourising Tension: Bengali Identity, Partition and Borders 8. Chhitmahal: Subjectivity, Resistance and Identities 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 10. Surmounting Borders: The Corridos of Jenni Rivera 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! 12. Teatro Travieso and the Performance of Feminicide in Women of Ciudad Juárez

About the Author :
Debaroti Chakraborty is Assistant Professor in the Department of Performing Arts, Presidency University, India. Debra A. Castillo is Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, Emerson Hinchliff Professor of Hispanic Studies, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University, USA, where she directs the Migration Studies minor. Kavita Panjabi is former Professor of Comparative Literature and Founder of the Centre for Studies in Latin American Literatures & Cultures at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.