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- All Subjects: Indigenous studies
- Creators: Fajardo-Hill, Cecilia
Description
The complexity of the U.S.-Mexico border is rooted in a fixation on establishing a clear separation of land that is unsafe and safe, between them and us. Chicana cultural theorist Gloria Anzaldúa states, “A border is a dividing line, a narrow string along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition” (Anzaldúa 1987, 3). In her 1987 semi-autobiographical work, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she examines the U.S.-Mexico borderland as an in-between space that allows for physical, emotional, and creative transformation through the lens of nepantla, a Nahuatl term for the “space between, in the middle of, or in the midst of.” Recognizing that collective landscapes, specifically that of the U.S.-Mexico border, are separated through policy and physical barriers, filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu (b. 1963, Mexico City, Mexico) explores the permeability of the U.S.-Mexico border desert landscape through his mixed reality immersive installation, Carne y Arena (Virtualmente Presente, Fisicamente Invisible) (Flesh and Sand: Virtually Present, Physically Invisible) (2017). This thesis analyzes the use of virtual reality technologies as immersive storytelling tools in Carne y Arena through a social history of art and scholar Gloria Anzaldúa's reinterpretation of the concept of nepantla as a liminal space of transformation. González Iñárritu’s Carne y Arena makes visible the perils Latin American migrants face when crossing the Southwest desert in an experiential presentation. Through a socially conscious lens, he depicts real-life individuals and their stories with humanity and empathy. Carne y Arena draws attention to the dehumanization of Latin American migrants and transforms the U.S.-Mexico border landscape into a political theater of imagination, empathy, and memory.
ContributorsZacarias, Deliasofia (Author) / Fajardo-Hill, Cecilia (Thesis advisor) / Hoy, Meredith (Thesis advisor) / Gonzalez, Rita (Committee member) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024