Centering borders in Latin American and South Asian contexts: aesthetics and politics of cultural production

Introduction / Debaroti Chakraborty, Debra A. Castillo and Kavita Panjabi -- Part 1. Oral Narratives: Experiencing Violence, Forging Modes of Survival -- Part 2. Photography: The Ethics of 'Evidence' and Erasure/Elision -- Part 3. Cinematic Representations: Vulnerability as Experience and Metaphor -- Part 4. Audio-/Visual Languages of Perception: Humour and Satire -- Subversion as Resistance -- Part 5. Songs: Transformations of Identity across Borders -- Part 6. Performance: Challenging Rationalities of Mass Killings.

This book presents inter-disciplinary research on contemporary borders with contributions from scholars and cultural practitioners located in different contexts in the Americas and South Asia. There has been significant sociological work on borders; however there is a relative dearth of humanities research on contemporary border realities, particularly in South Asia. This volume introducesframeworks of critical insights and knowledge on border narratives and cultural productions. It addresses and goes beyond the impact of the partition in South Asia to train a unique comparative and aesthetic lens on borders and borderlands in relation to Latin America and the U.S.A. through oral narratives, photographs, objects', films, theatre, journals, and songs. It maps border perspectives and their reception in a framework of cultural politics. It revolves around themes such as violence and modes of survival; women's narratives of migration, trafficking and incarceration; abduction of children; vulnerability as experience; rationalities of mass killings; and proliferation of countercultures to map border perspectives in a framework of cultural politics. First of its kind, the volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of comparative literary and cultural studies, South Asian studies, Latin American studies, border studies, arts and aesthetics, visual studies, sociology, comparative politics, international relations, and peace and conflict resolution studies.