Through the concept of “entangled geographies,” our group challenges the hegemonic ways of understanding the world governed by western logics. This contribution is a synthesis of a series of narratives that link disparate geographies through shared experiences of the violence inflicted by the nation-state mechanisms of control. The notion of border, borderland, and territory are interrogated by situated and contextual discourses that expose through praxis the underlying myths of what constitutes an edge or border condition. Four narratives--border condition from within, at the edge, from the outside, and in vertgio--unpack our approach to "entanglement" in geography.
“Border condition from within” (Kuwait) - rendering gendered bodies outside the bounds of the political realm, whereby feminist activism in the Arab World is uniquely situated and differentiated from feminism in the West.
“Border condition at the edge” (USA) – Mobilizing the power invoked semantically, such as dubbing the United States as a space for refuge and asylum, produced a spatial imaginary with real geographic consequences. Such consequences are rendered hyper-visible in the Sonoran borderland region. Recent attempts to secure a physical barrier between Mexico and the contiguous United States territory led to the destruction of long-rooted indigenous communities and countless deaths.
“Border condition from the outside” (Guantanamo) – by exporting disciplinary regimes of the neoliberal nation-state to geographies where authoritarianism reigns supreme such as Cuba, the United States can justifiably exercise clandestine mechanisms of discipline and punishment outside the legal purview of liberatory frameworks and human rights protections.
“Border condition in vertigo” (Mali) - using aerial technologies to justifiably penetrate the autonomy of nation-state authority over their territorial jurisdictions by dominant powers, how might we begin to rethink geography through a critical lens that transcends the materiality of the visible landscape?