scholarly journals “The whole point is that we're not supposed to look like anything”: non-binary (un)intelligibility and carving out space in gender's border-zones

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (1) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
A. A. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Border Zones

Automated Border Control: Criminalizing the “Hidden Intent” of Migrant Embodiment

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicity Amaya Schaeffer
Keyword(s):  
Homeland Security ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Great Part ◽  
The Body ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Computer Engineering ◽  
Novel Technologies ◽  
Surveillance Technology ◽  
Border Zones

I argue that we are entering an automated era of border control that I label a border-biosecurity industrial complex. Funded in great part by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), scientific research and automated surveillance technologies promise the state innovative and supposedly unbiased solutions to the challenge of border control and security. This article spotlights a border surveillance technology called AVATAR (Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessment in Real-Time). Analyzing this technology, which was funded by the DHS and developed by faculty at the University of Arizona’s National Center for Border Security and Immigration (BORDERS), allows me to assess how the emphasis on novel technologies to detect terrorists unleashes the search for ubiquitous surveillance devices programmed to detect deviant behavioral and physiological movements. I offer a wider view of this technology-in-the-making by analyzing how university research in aerial defense, the psychology of deception, the life sciences, and computer engineering influences the development of surveillance devices and techniques. I explore how, during a posthuman era, automated technologies detect and racialize “suspect life” under the guise of scientific neutrality and supposedly free from human interference. Suspect life refers to the racial bias preprogrammed into algorithms that compute danger or risk into certain human movements and regions such as border zones. As these technologies turn the body into matter, they present biological life as a more scientifically verifiable truth than human verbal testimony, moving border control from the adjudication of law through the subjective interview to the automated body that speaks a truth more powerful than a complex story can tell.

scholarly journals “Buoyant Cartographies”: Strata-Mapping the Detroit River Border

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Taien Ng-Chan
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Border Zone ◽  
City Image ◽  
Detroit River ◽  
Border Zones ◽  
Nature Park ◽  
A Site ◽  
International Border

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> In the early days of September 2018, a group of artists and researchers converged on the Detroit River (an international border between Detroit, Michigan, USA and Windsor, Ontario, Canada) to investigate the “Buoyant Cartographies” that this particular site demanded. As one of the parties involved in this participatory event (along with Lead Investigators <i>In/Terminus Creative Research Group</i> and <i>Float School</i>), my artist-research collective Hamilton Perambulatory Unit (HPU) undertook an experimental mapping project that investigated the different “strata” of the place and the development of a “city-image.” The HPU Strata-Walk is an experimental and performative mapping methodology that focuses on how spatial meaning is created through a “stratigraphic” sensing of a site. The Detroit-Windsor border makes an especially compelling site for a Strata-Walk, in light of the conflicts over borders and walls in the current political environment, which presents an urgent need towards understanding and envisioning alternate possibilities for border zones. As a material site and geo-political space, the Detroit River border particularly benefits from intermedial investigations into spatial meanings and their construction. Notably, the role of folklore and local narratives on the internet and social media (and the erasure of Indigenous knowledge) figures large in developing one's knowledge of place. Experimental cartographies can thus help to develop alternate ways of seeing such sites.</p><p>This presentation is an attempt to trace this particular event of “discovery,” an account of how a place becomes known and how intermedial practices influence the manifestation of space and experience. Inherent in this research is the overarching question of how one begins to decolonize public narratives of place, how gaps and erasures in knowledge can be located in order to demarcate a way forward for further study and action. With these concerns in mind, I conduct a preliminary analysis of the border site through the activities of the HPU and our specific “strata-walking” framework, which focuses on different approaches of mapping-as-process, from phenomenological, ethnographic and cultural landscape reading methodologies to networked, social and digital media research. This performative mapping can shape individual experiences of the border through the revealing of complex networks, flows, and narratives, and point to fissures where alternative imaginings might be possible. I will first begin with a brief introduction to the HPU’s methodologies, before situating them in a survey of relevant literatures around experimental and critical processes of mapping. Then, using photographic and textual documentation, I delve into some very preliminary results of the investigation, focusing on touristic experiences of border crossing as well as a look at the specific “imageability” of Peche Island in the Detroit River, a place of rumour and mystery, now a nature park maintained by the city of Windsor. The overall goal will be to demonstrate the necessity of experimental cartographies in the creation of alternate experiences and more reflexive narratives about the border zone, with the Detroit-Windsor border as a case study.</p>

scholarly journals Refugee Voices: Exploring the Border Zones between States and State Bureaucracies

Refuge ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Chatty
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
World Order ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Border Zones ◽  
Forced Migrants ◽  
Political Security ◽  
Policy Solutions

Settled people have been forced to move and nomads have been coerced into settling for as long as there has been history. Until the emergence of the Westphalian concept of the nation (where the state corresponded to the nation, groups of people united by language and culture), movement and mobility were largely recognized and accommodated. However, most contemporary academic disciplines as well as public institutions adopt a particular sedentist perspective on the nation-state. It is commonly recognized that people are displaced and move when political states collapse; they return when political security is restored. The liminal “state” outside the defined territory of the nation-state, where the displaced are found, is regarded as a threat to the world order.1 Predominant theory has been that people must be tied to territory, and thus the durable policy solutions advanced are frequently about resettlement. Reality does not support either current forced migration theory or humanitarian aid practices, however, and an epistemological change in thinking about forced migrants is urgently required. This means looking beyond the nationstate— the purview of most academic work in this area— and beyond traditional barriers between disciplines, to give cross-disciplinary attention to the self-expressions and experiences of forced migrants. Furthermore, the forced migrant creates a dilemma in how aesthetic expression is displayed, as their forms of expression cannot be squarely identified with one state or another. The dispossessed and displaced are changed by their experiences in the grey zones between states, and their migrations cannot be neatly catalogued as belonging to one state or culture.

scholarly journals Liminality and Border Crossing in Ádám Bodor’s Novels

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-129
Author(s):  
Zsuzsa Tapodi
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Physical Sense ◽  
Border Zones ◽  
Spatial Changes

Abstract The plots of the novels The Sinistra Zone (1992), The Archbishop’s Visit (1999) and The Birds of Verhovina (2011) by Ádám Bodor unfold in border zones, in spaces of liminal existence. By investigating the intricate relationship between the Self and the Other, using particular space forming techniques with shifts and displacements, these novels extend the scope of postmodern fragmentariness to identity construction as well. In these literary works enforced journeys or travels with well-defined purposes should not be merely understood in their physical sense: identity also undergoes a change, becomes hybrid. In a space characterized by a labyrinth of ethnic diversity, identities distorted by a dictatorial regime often go beyond the border of the human, the characters being endowed with animal features. Starting from Merleau-Ponty’s idea according to which action is not set in space, but rather comes into being through space (Faragó 2001, 7), the consequences of spatial changes must also be taken into account.

Egyptian Fortresses and the Colonization of Lower Nubia in the Middle Kingdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 269-288
Author(s):  
Laurel Bestock
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Models ◽  
State Control ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Border Zones ◽  
Permanent Settlement ◽  
The Military ◽  
Original Construction

In the early part of the 2nd millennium bce, the Egyptian state took control of Lower Nubia, building a series of monumental fortresses along the Nile that are remarkable for their sophisticated military architecture. This was Egypt’s first major expansion beyond its traditional borders. Various theoretical models of imperialism and core-periphery interactions have been brought to bear on studies of the forts and their populations, seeking to explain the military, economic, and ideological purposes behind the original construction of the monuments as well as the apparently shifting nature of their occupation, from probable rotating garrisons to more permanent settlement, and their interactions with local populations (cf. Trigger 1976:64–81; Adams 1977:183–88; Zibelius-Chen 1988:69–135; S.T. Smith 1995, 2003; Williams 1999; Flammini 2008; Török 2009:79–101; Vogel 2004; Knoblauch 2008). The resulting picture of Egyptian occupation of Nubia is a nuanced if not entirely agreed upon one. The fortresses are important to archaeology more broadly because they offer a richly documented case study for consideration of state control of foreign territory; they belong in the broader discourse about imperialism, colonization, and colonialism, how different state strategies of control can be understood in the material record, and how people live and interact in border zones. That the methods of Middle Kingdom control can be contrasted to both earlier and later Egyptian strategies of interaction with Nubia, and that the region is one of modern colonial entanglements, makes a critical approach to its occupation in the Middle Kingdom all the more vital.

Abstract 5278: The Sonic Hedgehog Transcription Factor Gli3 Modulates Ischemia-induced Angiogenesis

Circulation ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 118 (suppl_18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Ange Renault ◽  
Jerome Roncalli ◽  
Joern Tongers ◽  
Sol Misener ◽  
Tina Thorne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Transcription Factor ◽  
Limb Ischemia ◽  
Capillary Density ◽  
Left Ventricular ◽  
Dominant Negative ◽  
Tube Length ◽  
Reduced Ejection Fraction ◽  
Border Zones

Gli transcription factors are mediators of hedgehog signaling and have been shown to be critical in several steps during development. We have shown that the Hedgehog pathway is reactivated in the adult cardiovascular system under ischemic conditions, however the specific role of Gli3 has not been elucidated. Adenoviral mediated overexpression of Gli3 promotes HUVEC migration (250±58% of control, p<0.001) while down regulation of Gli3 via siRNA delayed tube formation on Matrigel (total tube length after 8 hours 6.86 vs. 70.76 control), suggesting a possible role of Gli3 in angiogenesis. We next investigated the role of Gli3 in angiogenesis using Gli3 +/− (Gli3 +/XtJ ) mice, a well established model of reduced Gli3 expression. VEGF-induced corneal angiogenesis was impaired in Gli3 +/− mice compared to WT. The role of Gli3 in angiogenesis was then confirmed in two ischemia models. Hind-limb ischemia (HLI) was induced by resection of the left femoral artery. Capillary density was reduced by a mean of 48.40±12.08% in Gli3 +/− mice vs. WT 7, 14 and 28 days. Myocardial infarction (MI) was induced by ligation of the LAD. 28 days after MI, left ventricular function assessed by echo and histological analysis revealed that Gli3 +/− mice exhibit reduced ejection fraction (27.92±4.49% versus 37.56±7.02% for the WT, p=0.004), increased fibrosis area (33.65±9.73% versus 19.81±5.40% for the WT, p=0.007) and a decrease capillary density in the ischemic and border zones. These data indicate that Gli3 deficiency leads to impaired angiogenesis in both ischemic and non ischemic conditions. Moreover, the impairment in ischemia induced neovascularization is associated with more severe impairment of cardiac function after MI. The mechanism of Gli3’s effects was then investigated in vitro . Promoter reporter assays revealed that Gli3 overexpression inhibits Gli-dependent transcription, while Western analysis show increased Akt phosphorylation, activation of the ERK1/2 and increased c-Fos expression. Using a dominant negative Akt expressing virus and a MEK1/2 inhibitor, we show that Gli3 induced-EC migration is dependent on Akt and ERK1/2. These studies provide the first evidence that the Gli3 transcription factor regulates angiogenesis and EC phenotype.

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