Of Fear, Contact, Entanglement

Abstract

Borders, to paraphrase Jacques Derrida, serve to establish the limits of the possible. Therefore, while borders that have been expanded, stretched, revised, or interrupted may produce a temporary sense of satisfied achievement with regard to an expanded field of possibilities, in reality they continue to establish those limits, albeit behind slightly redrawn lines. Every activity surrounded by a borderline, be it national identity or disciplinary identification, puts a parallel logic of division and containment into practice. There has been much cultural, artistic, and theoretical production surrounding borders-most of it focused on trying to inhabit the border in a way that refuses divisions between its mythical status and its pragmatic effects, which, of course, characterize the activity of every border. However, for all its playfulness and strategic irreverence, none of this work has been able to eradicate the limiting function of the border, to unravel it conceptually and destigmatize its cultural and civic affects.