Spatial and Discursive Violence in the US Southwest

In Spatial and Discursive Violence in the US Southwest Rosaura SÁnchez and Beatrice Pita examine literary representations of settler colonial land enclosure and dispossession in the history of New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. SÁnchez and Pita analyze a range of Chicano/a and Native American novels, films, short stories, and other cultural artifacts from the eighteenth century to the present, showing how Chicano/a works often celebrate an idealized colonial Spanish past as a way to counter stereotypes of Mexican and Indigenous racial and ethnic inferiority. As they demonstrate, these texts often erase the participation of Spanish and Mexican settlers in the dispossession of Indigenous lands. Foregrounding the relationship between literature and settler colonialism, they consider how literary representations of land are manipulated and redefined in ways that point to the changing practices of dispossession. In so doing, SÁnchez and Pita prompt critics to reconsider the role of settler colonialism in the deep history of the United States and how spatial and discursive violence are always correlated.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments  ix Introduction. Spatial and Discursive Violence in the US Southwest  1 1. Spatial Violence and Modalities of Colonialism: Enclosure  26 2. Indigenous Spatial Sovereignty and Governmentality: Rights and Wrongs in Oklahoma  43 3. Enclosures in New Mexico: Land of Disenchantment  92 4. Texas Narratives of Dispossession: When the Land Became Real Estate  148 Conclusion. Spatial Moorings and Dislocation  202 Notes  213 Bibliography  241 Index  253

About the Author :
Rosaura SÁnchez is Professor Emeritus of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Telling Identities: The Californio Testimonios. Beatrice Pita is Retired Lecturer of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. Together they have written Conflicts of Interest: The Letters of MarÍa Amparo Ruiz de Burton.

Review :
“In Spatial and Discursive Violence in the U.S. Southwest, Rosaura SÁnchez and Beatrice Pita present a brilliant critical history of the enclosure of land, water, and other resources while making a powerful argument for the significance of literature as a window into everyday contexts of enclosure. Partly focused on what literature makes visible, the authors also illuminate its powers of invisibility and its elision of the historical and material conditions of enclosure. SÁnchez and Pita thus make a field-transforming intervention, suggesting Chicanx literature's origins in the repression of Indigenous people's responses to dispossession.” - Curtis Marez, author of (University Babylon: Film and Race Politics on Campus) “Ushering in a timely and fully formed paradigm for the study of spatial and discursive violence, Rosaura SÁnchez and Beatrice Pita teach readers a valuable and sustained lesson in the all important nuances and responsibilities of applied theory. This is the book Chicana/o literary history has been waiting for.” - Angie Chabram, editor of (The Chicana/o Cultural Studies Reader) "SÁnchez and Pita give us tools for understanding the long history of contemporary conflicts, and push us to think more deeply about what liberatory futures may look like." - William Orchard (American Studies) "Sanchez and Pita uplift the importance of cultural production, especially literature, to enable new imaginaries that incite transformation." - John Jairo Valencia (E3W Review of Books) "This book sets in motion innovative incursions into the national and the global from a southwestern standpoint." - Roberto Cantu (World Literature Today) "Spatial and Discursive Violence in the US Southwest is both accessible and comprehensive. . . . SÁnchez and Pita’s newest book will be ideal for a graduate seminar or even an advanced undergraduate class because of the depth and breadth with which it recounts foundational history and literature in Chicana/o/x Studies. It is innovative yet approachable for a nonspecialist. In addition, their analysis of the commons points to new modes of enclosure and resistance in the twenty-first century and the potential for new regional and transnational linkages for future scholars." - Erin Murrah-Mandril (American Literary History) "This text provides historians with an opportunity to see literary analysis as a tool for historical understanding and demonstrates why colonialism must be examined critically. . . . SÁnchez and Pita remind readers that the past is never truly settled and that legacies of settler colonialism are not just alive but a part of our daily discourse." - Doris Morgan Rueda (Western Historical Quarterly) "The authors’ ultimate achievement is to show the historical and discursive processes that have led to Chicano/a and Tejano/as having displaced Indians as a denigrated caste in the contemporary United States. This is in itself a worthy exposition to have accomplished." - Leighton C. Peterson (American Indian Culture and Research Journal) "Collectively, the authors offer an important intervention for the field of Latinx studies and add to the developing framework of critical Latinx indigeneities scholarship as it challenges us to confront the unsteady relationship between Latinx history and Indigeneity." - Michelle Vasquez Ruiz (Latino Studies)