Borderland Gloria Anzaldùa Summary

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Being highly concerned with the hyper meanings associated with the defining term in the book borderland, Gloria Anzladùa initiates her argument by stressing the difference between two key terms namely border and borderland. For her, “A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary.”(Anzaldùa 3). Living in the border or “in the shadows” (Preface) like Anzaldùa puts it stands for a peculiar process of identity construction whereby”one’s shifting and multiple identity” (Preface) is re-invented. Moving beyond the monolithic view of identity articulates the essence of a new conceptualization of culture, a term the definition …show more content…

To further embark on the notions of culture and cultural studies, it should be noted that the very nature of the term has paved the way for a more comprehensive approach to identity in the way it emphasizes the politics of representations. Moreover, “the sites of contemporary cultural production and reception are no longer confined within the borders of nation-states(... . )Culture is becoming less a matter of locations than of hybrid and creolized meanings and practices that span global space. Cultures are syncretic and hybridized products of interactions across space” (Barker, The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Terms,68).Then, from this perspective, culture is foremost concerned with the processes of signification which deconstruct the pre-established set of meanings and hierarchies, notably the binaries of Self And Other (Said,Orientalism). Transcending the essentialist view that assumes rigid separating boundaries between cultures, the constructivist view which foregrounds the mechanisms of defining and redefining cultural identities in a multicultural society is to be

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