Borderlands narratives have historically been seen as peripheral to the development of American history and identity. In middle and high-school textbooks across the country, borderlands populations have received minimal attention. The binational spaces border people occupy have been portrayed as dangerous, illegitimate, and as part of a distinct counter-culture. In this Summer Institute, we aim to place these forgotten regions and their populations at the center of the debate about American history and identity by focusing on the multicultural region and narratives of the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez metroplex.
The main goal for the Borderlands Education Center -BEC- is to create an intellectual hub in the rural borderlands of Southeastern Arizona and Northern Mexico, thereby expanding learning and research opportunities for border teachers, researchers, and communities. The Center supports initiatives that address the complex educational issues on borders and foster the development of networks of border teachers and researchers and sponsors the Teacher Identities Institute addressing the border educational context, promoting diversity and inclusion and knowledge exchange with scholars and pre-service and in-service teachers.
H-Borderlands is the H-Net home for global borderlands historians. Originally a forum for scholars of the US-Mexico borderlands, it has grown to a wider community of researchers of continental and global border regions. We welcome transnational historians and scholars in many different disciplines who study historical and contemporary borderlands and border issues.
The borderlands in the Horn of Africa are synonymous with economic, social, and political marginalization, entrenched poverty, persistent conflict, forced displacement, and environmental degradation. However, these borderlands also support livelihood systems and opportunities for more than100 million people in pastoralism and trade. They are closely connected to circuits of regional and global trade and host well-knit social networks based on cross-country clan and ethnic affiliations.
Among the most significant of the challengesin the Horn is widespread insecurity and violence as a result of inter-state conflict, criminal activity, localized contestations over resources, and violent extremism. Unsurprisingly, the effects of conflict are heavily gendered. Young men are more likely to be affected by traditional practices around cattle raiding as they take part in raids and protect the cattle. Women on the other hand may be disproportionately affected by challenges faced when collecting firewood, water, and food; gender-based violence due to heightened insecurity, as well as forms of structural patriarchy including limited access to productive assets. Men and women are also differently challenged in the borderlands by the high levels of forced displacement, food insecurity, environmental degradation and climate change vulnerability, natural hazard risks.
Nonetheless, sources of resilience exist, many of which are oriented around the crossing of national borders. The borderlands are characterized by robust trade, and especially livestock exports, which tap markets in Egypt and the Middle East even in times of conflict, and in the face of climate crises and external market shocks. Cross-border informal trade also plays a critical role across the region and is dominated by women. Traditional and informal community institutions (often based on clan or ethnicity), though weakened, still play a significant role in regulating the livestock trade, managing trade relations, and resolving disputes in areas where the state has limited reach.
A borderlands perspective does not yield simple policy prescriptions. However, by emphasizing the need to pay attention to the context, history and spatial dynamics of border regions, it offers an analytical lens which can help development actors craft better policies and investments.
Perez reveals a shifting tension in the literal and figurative borderlands of popular narratives and shows how form, genre, and subject work to determine the roles Mexican American fathers are allowed to occupy. She also calls our attention to the cultural landscape that has allowed such a racialized representation of Mexican American fathers to continue, unopposed, for so many years. Fatherhood in the Borderlands brings readers right to the intersection of the white cultural mainstream in the United States and Mexican American cultural productions, carefully considering the legibility and illegibility of Brown fathers in contemporary media.
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