Maira E. Álvarez  and Sylvia Fernández | Responding to the “Border Crisis”
Channel: MSU Digital Humanities
Date: 2019-05-31

Maira E. Álvarez  and Sylvia Fernández | University of Houston

Full title: Responding to the “Border Crisis”: Digital Interventions and Transnational Partnerships

Current and past national discourses about the border have continued to generalize, stereotype and make invisible the complex history along the US-Mexico border. Recent news, present this region as an area of chaos, a  “border crisis.” However, borderlands’ identities have emerged throughout history as a result of the loss of territory, (im)migrations, exile, deterritorialization, deportation, transborder dynamics, divisions, as well as mechanisms of militarization. By creating critical digital humanities projects oriented towards social justice through the use of archival material and public data with digital companions it is possible to delve and reveal other notions of the US-Mexico border. This presentation will discuss how collaborative projects such as Borderlands Archives Cartography (BAC) and Torn Apart / Separados (TA/S) disrupt toxic discourses of this region and its communities by creating two platforms that challenge the “border crisis” by displaying the complexity of the US-Mexico border.

Borderlands Archives Cartography was created to visualize, document, and analyze the junction of various cultures and histories of the border region before and after it became the current division line. BAC uses a digital map to display the U.S.-Mexico borderlands by recording geographic locations of 19th and mid-20th century newspapers. By approximating archival material through the notion of Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga, theory in the flesh, alternative forms of historical documentation emerge, which allow a deeper understanding of border transitions and migration flows found in borderlands’ histories, identities, and cultures. BAC’s transnational newspaper archive incites us to revisit and reinterpret history creating a counter discourse responding to past and current discourses that continue to attack the borderlands and its communities.

Torn Apart / Separados was created as a response to President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy in 2018 and immigration incarceration in the USA in general. TA / S data visualizations illustrate the landscapes, families, and communities driven by the massive web of immigrant detention in the United States, as well as the shadowy economic web that supports ICE infrastructure. The use of public data and mobilize humanities practices allowed other interpretations of family separation such as: how is not just a Mexico-US border issue, but a national one since detention centers are found throughout the nation; and how this is a corrupt mechanism where the U.S. government profits from vulnerable communities by continuously degrading people of color. This initiative becomes a historical digital record that continues to work to profoundly review the “border crisis.”

For more information about the 2019 Global DH Symposium visit msuglobaldh.org.