Hacia una fenomenología del cruce. Propuestas literarias, cinematográficas y artísticas desde la frontera norte/sur

Abstract

The perspective on the Mexican-US Border is modified when looked at as frontera norte or as Southern Border. Along this enormous division line, the crossing of persons or merchandise between two distinct geopolitical entities becomes possible or is restricted. It is an emblematic zone to conceive the phenomenon of crossing. Contemporary literature, cinema and arts reflect a focus on displacements, a tendency that can be understood as a movement towards a transborder approach. Which phenomena of crossing between Mexico and the US exist, and how are they constructed and described in texts and images from and about the Northern/Southern Border? Transborder appears as an inherent category in the best-known concepts of the Border at the end of the 20th century (Anzaldúa, Canclini, Mignolo, amongst others). This article sounds out how crossings manifest in contemporary expression of Border writers, artists and theorists (such as Laura Varela, Norma Cantú, Mayra Martell, Perla de la Rosa, Puro Borde, Azzul Monraz y Aldo Guerra, Guillermo Gómez Peña). This way, the outline of a Phenomenology of Crossings is revealed, which is characterized by the double presence of crossing and not crossing, of difference and similarity, of vulnerable experiences and their transformation. The understanding of «two sides» starts to be interrupted, disseminated. In the act of crossing, the Border is, ambiguously, division and unity, regional and superregional entity, violence and healing.

Keywords

• crossing
• phenomenology
• border
• literature
• cinema
• arts