About this Issue
"Borders on Belonging" emerged from the 2007 Scholar and Feminist
Conference XXXII, "Fashioning Citizenship: Gender and Immigration,"
which, like this issue, drew attention to the public panic, fear, and
resulting marginalization and criminalization of immigrants in the
United States and across the world. Also like the conference, a
wide-range of perspectives are represented in this issue, including
those of activists, performers, scholars, and filmmakers. The conference
also brought light to the question of how gender and sexuality are
implicated in perceptions and policy about immigration. Gender has
received surprisingly little attention in the public debates over
immigration, despite the fact immigration policies in many countries are
based on ideas of family integration that depend fundamentally on gender
and sexuality.
Our contributors focus on many different areas of the world.
Given that immigration is one aspect of global relations in our
increasingly interconnected world, our hope is that making connections
across contexts and providing comparative perspectives will help us to
better understand a phenomenon that is too often treated in isolation:
as if, for example, immigration to the United States is a social issue
that stops at the nation's borders.
"Part 1 - Media and Immigration" examines the role that mainstream
media plays in perpetuating negative stereotypes and widespread fear of
immigrants. "Part 2 - Critical Essays: Theorizing the Issues" presents
the work of scholars who discuss a wide range of issues in relation to
gender and immigration, including, borders, state violence and the
criminalization of immigrants, definitions of "state" and "sovereignty,"
gendered and sexualized labor, homoerotic fantasies, religion and
racism. And finally, "Part 3 - Critical Engagements: Artists and
Activists Intervene" is comprised of contributions by artists and
activists who have worked to create more complex and accurate
representations of the lives of and issues faced by immigrants—works
that dispel stereotypes and promote social change.
We hope our readers agree that looking at immigration with a focus on
gender, race and sexuality allows us to imagine immigration across
scales and spaces and "also to struggle to imagine and realize," as
guest editor Neferti Tadiar states in her introduction, "more open and
just possibilities of living and belonging."
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