Borders function as the enabling condition for mixed-race and interstitial identities

Evidence

In a creative reading of various bodies of literature, Claudia Milian Arias analyzes the ways in which borders - physical and geographical, metaphysical and metaphorical, philosophical and linguistic - fashion interlocking identities. She reveals how these bordered identities create selves that are inscribed racially, sexually, culturally, and linguistically. These selves, she suggests, dialogue with what become “other” borderlands, other identities marked by distinct boundaries. She is particularly interested to show how borders are thus the conditions of possibility for interstitial identities such as mixed race formations. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2245

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: how borders don’t just constrain but actually generate interstitial identities — a reframing of border theory that could interest urban studies or critical race readers.