Cultural Dynamics current issue

Contesting/Negotiating Power and Domination on the US -- Mexico Border: Mexican and Central American Migrants in El Paso

Bhimji, F. — 2009-07-27

The article examines the ways in which twenty Mexican and five Central Americans male undocumented migrants construct the border in varying ways while they speak of their work conditions and their encounters and perceptions of the border patrol agents on the Texas/Mexico border area. Many of them who work as construction workers are economically exploited since they are paid below standard minimum wages. The temporary migrant workers display knowledge of their rights and entitlements through discursive practices such as evaluations, knowledge of their exploitative conditions, and resolutions to move further into the US or to find alternative means of income. In doing so, the migrants construct the border in many instances as a transitional space which is rather exploitative. More significantly, the undocumented migrants tend to differ in the ways in which they experience the border. Despite the militarization and exploitative work conditions for some undocumented migrants the border is perceived as relatively fluid. While for other immigrant groups such as Central Americans, migrants with past criminal records, and younger demonized males the border is more enclosed where they have to contend with power structures on a different level. There has been much focus on the border and border narratives across various disciplines but little attention has been given to the ways in which undocumented migrants experience the border during their temporary stay in order to transition to further points in the US such as Dallas, Los Angeles, and Denver. Data are based on participant observation, informal conversations, and recorded interviews of 25 male undocumented migrants residing at a temporary shelter in El Paso, Texas, over two summer periods in the years 2006 and 2007.

Transnational Gender Studies and the Migrating Concept of Gender in the Middle East and North Africa

Hale, S. — 2009-07-27

This article is an attempt to capture aspects of ramifying networks that are transporting the fluid concept of `gender'. Assuming that transnationality is a central feature in diasporic contexts, how does it manifest itself in diasporic practices? If one of these practices is knowledge production, then what are the processes of migrating epistemologies and how are these gendered? This begs the question of whether or not gender is still an important site from which to view the fluid phenomena of postcolonial/transnational processes or if the contemporary valences of transnationalism require, instead, a fluid gendering of the contemporary categories of empire that operate differently through space. By reading the transnational through the local, with particular reference to Ahfad University for Women (Sudan), the article interrogates the ways concepts of women/gender and feminist ideas travel across boundaries and how these concepts are changed in the process.

Duty Bound?: Militarization, Romances, and New Forms of Violence among Sri Lanka's Free Trade Zone Factory Workers

Hewamanne, S. — 2009-07-27

This article analyzes how the complex intersections of political economy of war and transnational production led to particular social dynamics between Sri Lanka's women Free Trade Zone workers and military personnel. It explores the new spaces of violence against factory workers that resulted from increased militarization and women's FTZ garment factory employment. The article shows how the militarizing process continued even during the peace process and asserts that there will be little hope of eliminating the new spaces of violence without revising some of the political economic processes behind the war and transnational production.

Containing East Bengal: Language, Nation, and State Formation in Pakistan, 1947--1952'

Toor, S. — 2009-07-27

Recent scholarship on the state has moved towards a focus on state formation as a contingent and contradictory process, and the role of culture therein. Since all states today are understood to be `nation-states', `national culture' becomes a key arena for struggles over hegemony and consequently for understanding nation-state formation. This article uses the `national language controversy' in Pakistan between 1947 and 1952 as a lens through which to explore the relationship between discourses of national culture and the consolidation and contestation of power within the modern (postcolonial) nation-state.