Gendering Border Studies

Gender (defined as the knowledge about perceived distinctions between the sexes) is an important signifier of borders as constructed and contested lines of differences. This book explores this new interdisciplinary field and develops it further.

The study of borders has recently undergone significant transitions, reflecting changes in the functions of boundaries themselves, as the world political map has experienced transformations. Gender (defined as the knowledge about perceived distinctions between the sexes) is an important signifier of borders as constructed and contested lines of differences. In the interplay with other categories of difference like class, race, ethnicity, and religion, it plays a major role in giving meaning to different forms of borders. It is not surprising, then, that an increasing number of studies in the last years have aimed for a gendering of border studies. This book explores this new interdisciplinary field and develops it further. The main questions it asks are: How do we define 'borders', 'frontiers' and 'boundaries' in different disciplinary approaches of gendered border studies? What were and are the main fields of gendered border studies in different fields? What might be important questions for future research? And how useful is an inter- or transdisciplinary approach for gendered border studies? Sixteen established scholars from various disciplines contribute chapters in which they set out how the issue of gender and borders has been approached in their discipline and describe what they expect from future research.

Introduction Henrice Altink and Chris Weedon I. MIGRATION AND GENDER 1 Outside the border of the modern: Mexican migration and the racialized and gendered dynamics of US national belonging Deborah Cohen, University of Missouri - Saint Louis 2 Accented margins: gendering the borders of diaspora Janet Bauer, Trinity College (Hartford, CT) 3 Brazilian women crossing borders: erotic dancers in New York city Suzana Maia, Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Brazil 4 Teacher supply and the Wales-England border, 1922-50: a gendered perspective Sian Rhiannon Williams, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff II. GENDERED NARRATIVES OF BORDER CROSSING 5 Reading gender in border-crossing narratives Johan Schimanski, University of Tromso, Norway 6 Taking sides: power-play on the Welsh border in early twentieth-century women's writing Jane Aaron 7 'Those blue remembered hills': gender in twentieth-century Welsh border writing by men Katie Gramich, Cardiff University III. GENDER AND THE DRAWING OF INTERNAL BORDERS 8 Crossing intimate borders: gender, settler colonialism, and the home Margaret D. Jacobs, University of Nebraska-Lincoln 9 Scottishness and gender history in a cross-border/international context: re-inventing the border? Sian Reynolds, Stirling University 10 Sexual/cultural hybridity in the 'new' South Africa: emergent sites of transnational queer politics William J. Spurlin, University of Sussex 11 The construction and negotiation of racialised borders in Cardiff docklands Chris Weedon and Glenn Jordan, University of Glamorgan IV. TEACHING GENDERED BORDERS 12 Locating the 'border' in gender: creating coherence in border pedagogy Jocelyn C. Ahlers and Kimberley Knowles-Yanez, California State University San Marcos