Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists

Primary Theme: Resistance

Secondary Theme: Borders

(4-0800) Claiming Space: Politics of Place, Representation, and Hope in the Urban Borderlands

As contemporary urban development seeks new markets for expansion, minoritzed communities in the United States continue to face gentrification, erasure of their cultural heritage, and even social death. Previously “undesirable” neighborhoods have become the locus for trendy upper class establishments and living spaces. These urban renewal projects regularly appropriate the names and iconography of previous inhabitants while simultaneously making it impossible for the local communities to subsist. In his book, Barrio-Logos: Space and Place in Urban Chicano Literature and Culture, Raúl Homero Villa (2000) documents these processes of “barrioization” as they simultaneously work to control and to deterritorialize mexicano communities in California in cyclical “regimes of urban restructuring” that dismantle established communities to make room for “modern” enhancements (183). However, these processes are not without contestation. Working-class communities refuse these institutional, social, economic and political processes of erasure and spatial reorganization through what Villa terms as “barriology.” This panel investigates the push and pull of these processes as marginalized city dwellers battle for the right to cultural representation and geographic longevity. Presenters will document and analyze how their collaborators employ strategies of “barriology” in their respective urban settings through digital, visual and performing arts as well as through claiming space with cultural centers and community organization. Each speaker contributes new ethnographic knowledge of the struggle to exist and even thrive despite the parasitic cultural appropriation and displacement of their communities.

Organizer(s)

• Cassie Smith

  PhD Student
  University of New Mexico

Chair(s)

• Cassie Smith

  PhD Student
  University of New Mexico

Presenter(s)

• Cassie Smith

  PhD Student
  University of New Mexico

• Michael Trujillo

  Associate Professor
  University of New Mexico

• Belinda Ramírez

  PhD Candidate
  University of California, San Diego, Department of Anthropology

• Miguel Garcia, Jr

  San Jose State University

• Ben Chappell

  University of Kansas

• Guillermina Nunez

  Associate Professor of Anthropology
  University of Texas at El Paso

Discussant(s)

• Alex Chavez

  University of Notre Dame

Presentations:

• 2:00 PM - 2:15 PM

  Teaching Hope in the Borderlands: Social Justice Learning through Arts-Based Education
  Cassie L. Smith – University of New Mexico
• 2:15 PM - 2:30 PM

  “It Matters to Me
  Michael L. Trujillo – University of New Mexico
• 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM

  Claiming and Making Space on the Border: Urban Agriculture in Tijuana and San Diego
  Belinda C. Ramírez – University of California, San Diego, Department of Anthropology
• 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM

  Street Vendors, Super Bowl 50, and The Spatial Politics of Immigration Control in Silicon Valley
  Miguel Angel Garcia, Jr – San Jose State University
• 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

  Traditions of the Oppressed: Popular Aesthetics and Layered Barrio Space against the Erasure of Gentrification
  Ben Chappell – University of Kansas
• 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM

  Centering the Margins: The Role of Women in Community Development and Coalition Building Efforts in the Colonias of the US Mexico Border
  Guillermina G. Nunez – University of Texas at El Paso
• 3:30 PM - 3:45 PM

  Discussion
  Alex E. Chavez – University of Notre Dame