Borders Talk: Dots, Dashes & the Stories They Tell
Hosted by Border Studies academics Zalfa Feghali and Gillian Roberts, this podcast explores border depictions and encounters in our contemporary world.
Zalfa, Gillian, and their guests discuss borders, their cultural manifestations, and their implications. In their aim to make the academic field of border studies accessible to non-specialist audiences, they ask questions like: “What do borders look like?”, “How are borders used and mobilised in our everyday lives?”, and “What different borders can be known?”
To answer these questions, they consider current events, personal stories, and specialist academic texts, as well as exploring and reflecting on “classic” texts of Border Studies.
Borders Talk: Dots, Dashes & the Stories They Tell
"Border Art" with guest David Stirrup
David mentioned "pretendians," a term used to refer to individuals who falsely claim Indigenous heritage.
David mentioned work by Eric Gansworth (Onondaga). Read more about Gansworth’s work here.
Find a map of Anishinaabe territory here.
Find a map of Mohawk territory here.
The Jay Treaty (1794), a treaty between the United States and Great Britain (and now Canada) signed after the Revolutionary War, guarantees the rights of Indigenous people to cross the border "without hindrance." Read the Treaty here.
Find a map of Tohono O'odham territory here.
Maquiladoras are assembly plants for international corporations that proliferate at the US-Mexico border, especially after the North American Free Trade Agreement (1994).
Unsurprisingly, we talked about a lot of artwork:
- Alberto Caro's Border Coffins (1994): see it and read more about US-Mexico border art here.
- Ursula Biemann’s Performing the Border (1999).
- Zalfa mentioned art on billboards in Texas; they were actually in New Mexico. A series of ten billboards erected along Interstate 10 in southern New Mexico by the art organization Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND).
- Postcommodity’s Repellent Fence (2015) can be seen here.
- David mentioned Christo, who with his late wife Jeanne-Claude wrapped landmarks.
- Ana Teresa Fernández’s 2011 (and ongoing) project Borrando La Frontera (Erasing the Sky). Hear the artist speak about the project here.
- Javier Tellez’s One Flew over the Void (Bala Perdida) from 2005. You can watch it here.
- Richard Lou’s The Border Door (1988). See it and read more about it here.
- David continues to be inspired by Alan Michelson’s Third Bank of the River (2009).
- Read more about the Two Row Wampum Belt here
- David mentioned Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas' work
The material in this podcast is for informational purposes only. The personal views expressed by the hosts and their guests on the Borders Talk podcast do not constitute an endorsement from associated organisations.
Thanks to the University of Leicester's School of Arts, Media and Communication for use of recording equipment; to India Downton for her invaluable expertise; and to the Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK and the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham for financial support.
Music: “Corrupted” by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Edited by Steve Woodward at podcastingeditor.com
