A borderland methodology / Una metodología fronteriza

ABSTRACT

This paper develops a flexible explication of borderland methodology, demonstrating a practical application of Gloria Anzaldúa’s theories on scholarly research. This essay’s form duplicates the key insights of her book, Borderlands/La Frontera (2012). Specifically, this author takes as central an auto-ethnographic research project fostered by the support of a professor, Dr. Christine Marin. The discovery process of an undergraduate life-history project enabled this author to see how his research has been made possible by a long line of women’s labor, particularly structured by the borderlands. As the author examines in hindsight how he learned to create methods organically, he sees the impact that Gloria Anzaldúa’s theories have made across many disciplines and strongly in his own research with an Indigenous community living on both sides of an international border. This essay results in a list of characteristics that the author determines as definitive of a borderland methodology. Avoiding prescriptive boundaries, the essay provides insight into the multiple uses of boundaries and borders in an academic life, particularly in terms of race. The methodology described takes shape in the form of honoring women who labored for the sustenance of their communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Autoethnography
• borderland
• ethnography
• Gloria Anzaldúa
• methodology
• methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. I would like to acknowledge that I wrote this article while a Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, which sits on unceded Tongva land. Most of the research was completed on Yoeme traditional lands, and I was born and raised on historic Apache land. Further, I am grateful for the editorial support from Jeffrey Garner and Sarah Warren and for the recommendations from three anonymous peer reviewers. I am thankful for the early feedback from Dr. Cyndy Garcia-Weyandt, Dee Mauricio, Christina Novakov-Ritchey, and Dr. Kim TallBear. All comments are my responsibility.

2. My switch of prepositions from researching ‘on’ to researching ‘with’ follows a transition that took place during the late 1990’s as well: no longer were they ‘informants,’ but rather ‘collaborators’ and ‘co-researchers.’ My story begins right before this shift, an indicator that I came of academic age during the reflective turn in Anthropology.

3. The methodology I outline here is not related to the work of Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2013) who have developed a way to understand the border as a method. They aim their ‘border method’ at economic flows and financial transitions.

4. Fine has long inspired my research and methodological framing. In her conception of ‘hyphens’ (1994) she takes serious account of the many hyphens in our work, including self and other, the lines that separate knowledge makers from those studied in stereotypical sociological studies.

5. I mean ‘toolbox’ in the way that many of us in the History of Consciousness Department at UCSC were trained: rather than adhere to any one method, we should become agile enough with a few method-tools and use them as necessary, changing them as needed for particular parts of our research. I do not mean ‘toolbox’ in the way that Eigenbrode et al. (2007) develop their ‘toolbox for philosophical dialogue’ methodology.

6. For a clear analysis of the ways dreaming states have been misinterpreted as either unimportant or symptomatic of disorders, causing a widespread dismissal of ‘visionary episteme,’ see Lee Irwin (1994, 9–25).

7. My ontological understanding of objects that evidence will, intention, and agency leads me to use ‘whom’ in such contexts.

8. The Yoeme Testamento can better be understood either in Evers and Molina (1992) or in Shorter (2009, 67–98).

9. See Maffie (2014) for an in-depth analysis of nepantla that gives more weight to Anzaldúa’s choice. Nepantla might best be described as the messiness of sex as the state of the universe, as when two bodies of water meet.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Delgado Shorter

David Delgado Shorter is the author of an award-winning book and the recipient of the University’s top teaching award. Dr. Shorter has created three digital publications, produced and directed an ethnographic film, and curated exhibits both on-line and in Los Angeles. His research includes over two decades of collaboration with an Indigenous community in Mexico and studying the borderland between the objective and intersubjective sciences. He is currently directing the Archive of Healing, an on-line database of traditional medical knowledge from around the globe.