Catching the Elusive. The Benefits of Borderlands Studies

Borderlands, like the nation, have their space and time, their history, politics, culture and literature – and their contradictory aims. When we wish to say something sensible about borderland literature, sooner or later we must turn to the problem of identity that has been destabilized, lost, or which is stubbornly protected. Borderlands are places of the interaction of cultures, which is not necessarily conflictual, but which is always inscribed into the relationship between the self and the other. The borderlands situation contains a fundamental contradiction: it demands clear identification from the subject, while at the same time making such identification impossible because of the very conditions of multiculturalism. As a result, a text that belongs to borderland literature speaks by means of a series of discourses which comprise a composition (mosaic of discourses), while also registering the conventional and artificial nature of these discourses. Therefore, we can project a borderland history of literature, but it requires different approaches to the text and its new, especially borderland interpretation.
 

Catching the Elusive. The Benefits of Borderlands Studies

Borderlands, like the nation, have their space and time, their history, politics, culture and literature – and their contradictory aims. When we wish to say something sensible about borderland literature, sooner or later we must turn to the problem of identity that has been destabilized, lost, or which is stubbornly protected. Borderlands are places of the interaction of cultures, which is not necessarily conflictual, but which is always inscribed into the relationship between the self and the other. The borderlands situation contains a fundamental contradiction: it demands clear identification from the subject, while at the same time making such identification impossible because of the very conditions of multiculturalism. As a result, a text that belongs to borderland literature speaks by means of a series of discourses which comprise a composition (mosaic of discourses), while also registering the conventional and artificial nature of these discourses. Therefore, we can project a borderland history of literature, but it requires different approaches to the text and its new, especially borderland interpretation.