This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
Cuerpos de Fuerza y Resistencia: Dismantling the U.S. – Mexico Border in the Work of Ana Teresa Fernández and Margarita Cabrera addresses how their artwork maps a geography of resistance that counters the carceral landscape of the U.S. – Mexico border. I apply Michel Foucault’s (1926 – 1984) methodologies of…
Cuerpos de Fuerza y Resistencia: Dismantling the U.S. – Mexico Border in the Work of Ana Teresa Fernández and Margarita Cabrera addresses how their artwork maps a geography of resistance that counters the carceral landscape of the U.S. – Mexico border. I apply Michel Foucault’s (1926 – 1984) methodologies of the panopticon to the border as a lens to analyze how Fernández and Cabrera dismantle this structure of power through centering their work on the invisible labor of immigrant women. Foucault’s assertions of disciplinary spaces compare to the unethical conditions in migrant detention centers and maquiladoras. Giorgio Agamben’s (b.1942) study of the concentration camp and theory of bare life also provides a point of comparison between these spaces and harmful treatment of immigrants that Fernández and Cabrera criticize. Through a focused selection of Fernández’s performances and subsequent documentary paintings from her Pressing Matters, Borrando La Frontera, Entre and Of Bodies and Borders series, I analyze how her repetitive and metaphoric acts of labor communicate liberation and autonomy. In a similar vein, I focus on Cabrera’s collaborative embroidery workshops and resultant Space in Between sculptures of Indigenous plants of the Southwest, her vinyl sculptures of domestic appliances, and collaged works on paper from El Flujo de Extracciones. Like Fernández, Cabrera’s aesthetics of labor reveal the disciplinary and abusive institutions of the border, such as the maquiladora, and thus deconstruct these isolating power structures. In considering Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s (1942-2004) borderlands theory, Fernández and Cabrera’s work exemplifies a cultural duality that is integral to disrupting immigrant oppression. I further engage with writer and activist Grace Chang’s gendered analysis on immigration as a framework to address the feminist social justice issues that Fernández and Cabrera explore in their work. Fernández and Cabrera exemplify how centering immigrant women will not only aid in the destruction of xenophobic systems, but also empower stories about women, and invoke a continuous resistance against patriarchal traditions.
