Merriam Webster Online dictionary defines location as “a position or site occupied or available for occupancy or marked by some distinguishing feature.” This definition defines location useable, measurable, and a place of worth. It is a capitalist way of parceling out land, along the same lines as the 1862 Homestead Act built on the notion of the “yeoman farmer” and breaking up land into individual family “homestead” plots to occupy the American West. Thinking about location, my mind gravitates to looking at space from a nation-state perspective, one sovereignty controlled spot to the next. In this definition, I am going to explain how location is not just an independent single spot with specific borders, but how each spot overlaps and create new margin locations all together.
The development of these margins contradict the absolute nation-state and shows how dividing up land and location for capitalist and private property spaces does not reflect how location functions organically.
Considering the definition’s notion of occupying a given location, the state may strive to control and to optimize land for productivity with systems like monoculture crops, suburban developments, and similar looking people, homogeneity of location only exists on the surface. The land may be divided up, but on the natural geography changes and evolves, there are different micro-climates for different regions, vegetation growth depends on soil quality and resource availability, animals follow independent migration patterns, and natural human immigration changes the complexity of the people who temporary occupy a location.
The borderlands region between the United States and Mexico illustrate how dynamic location can be. The borderlands emerged from t...
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...iotically, which further illustrates how locations are intertwined.
To draw a line physically between one place and another is politically arbitrary and does not account for the organic and “undetermined” nature of location. The natural movement and growth of humans, animals and plants, the fluidity of people and cultures, especially in consideration to the United States and Mexico border region, and distant economic relationships illustrate how a location is completely subjective. During the Border Studies’ Skype conversation with Geography Professor Joseph Nevins, he referred to space and location as a “way of seeing and being.” This is significant because it is a dynamic perspective of location. Nation-state bounds cease to exist, allowing free unrestricted movement that already happens anyway. I define location as “a dynamic place with no natural boundaries.”
The United States-Mexico border represents a microcosm, a cross section of humanity's downtrodden being met with beuracratic, neo-liberal policies and an utter indifference to life itself. A modern version of David vs Goliath plays out along these lines day after day and while the border may seem well-defined, the laws, regulations, and enforcement patterns surrounding it are amorphous at best and murderous at worst. De León heavily takes into account how the environment plays a key role in not only the mortality rate of migrants but also how it becomes a breeding ground of extrajudicial activity. He mentions "The isolation of the desert combined with the public perception of the border as a zone ruled by chaos allows the state to justify using extraordinary measures to control and exclude “uncivilized” noncitizens" (2). There is a concerted effort by border officials to
Robert D. Kaplan’s articles “Travels into America’s Future” present a description of Tucson, Arizona as it stood in 1998. His articles are based entirely on his personal experiences with the city and with it’s Mexican neighbors to the south, and while somewhat entertaining, contain vast oversights and discrepancies that make his outsider standing obvious to any native reader.
In the book The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape, the author, Harm de Blij, argues that where we are born and our geography can affect who we are and what we will become. He applies his knowledge of geography and other relatable information such as health, economy, languages, and several other areas of subject. De Blij categorizes the earth into three subdivisions: locals, globals, and mobals. He defines locals as “those who are poorest, least mobile, and most susceptible to the power of place” (pg-notes). Globals are those who “whether in government, industry, business, or other decision-making capacities, flatten
America’s land boarder with Mexico is 1,989 miles long (Lindi), and roughly 368 miles of that boarder is with the state of Arizona. A fence protects a portion of ...
This critical response explores author Roxanne Doty’s article, Bare life: border-crossing deaths and spaces of moral alibi. Specifically, it focuses on the section, Biopower and bare life in the US - Mexico borderlands. Accordingly, this analysis considers key questions and concepts as they mutually relate to the materials we cover in our module for week six about citizenship, migration and human rights. To be sure, Doty provides compelling support in her examination of migrant border-crossing deaths in the vicinity of the United Stated and Mexico border, stemming from components of the United States border patrol policy of ‘prevention through deterrence’ (Doty, 2011, p.599). Doty exceptionally explains this inhumane political strategy with
Martinez, Oscar. Border People: Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1994), 232.
...brief portion of the feelings that accompanied the loss of land for California, New Mexico and Texas. As shown some were passive while others were aggressive. All felt and dealt with similar yet different experiences once America took over half of Mexico’s territory in 1848, after twenty-one months of war between the two nations (Padilla, 14). Whether one was accommodating or resistant to Americans in Mexico’s prior lands, the Mexicanos and Tejanos all felt uprooted, scared and unsure of what the future would hold for them. But one commonality that Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid, Cleofas M. Jaramillo, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Eulalia Perez de Guillen Marine and Juan Nepumuceno Sequin all shared was that they told their stories and because of that the world will forever have the accounts of these people and their heritages told through their own histories.
Mexican Border Problems The U.S.-Mexico border region is one of the most dynamic in the world. It extends more than 3,100 kilometers (2,000 miles) from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and 100 kilometers (62.5 miles) on each side of the international border and is marked by high concrete fences in the west and a broad shallow river in the east when it reaches Texas. The region includes large deserts, numerous mountain ranges, rivers, wetlands, large estuaries, and shared aquifers. While its people share natural resources like water and air, the border region is characterized by many social, economic, and political contrasts. There is the single biggest and most dangerous problem facing America: violence from illegal immigrants, smugglers and drug runners along
Contreras, Sheila Marie. “Emergent Readings of the Post-Conquest: Indigeneity and Mestizaje in the Texas Borderlands.” Indigenous Cultures Institute. Meakan/Garzas Band, 16 Feb. 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. .
Anzalda’s Genre Borderlands Gloria Anzalda writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzalda presents this information in various identifiable ways, including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzalda is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously constructed borders, proving both problematic and a step in the right extremely ideal direction.
Roma, R. (2006, May). Texas border patrol… Retrieved April 23, 2008, from Thompson Gale database.
... U.S. counties bordering Mexico live at or below the poverty line. Along with unemployment rates, this is a significant problem for border security and the threat that it poses on our borders. Each day there are efforts to enforce and strengthen our borders from illegal immigrants, drugs and terrorism. Over the years, there have been major changes in the way we secure our borders. Some strategies were more effective but as the fight continues, the strategies will advance and will tighten the rope on holding back those things that pollute and destroy our nation’s border.
There were an abundance of spatial differences in terms of ethnic, convivial and occupational status, while there were low occurrences of the functional differences in land use patterns. The concentric model postulated a spatial disunion of place of work and place of residence, which was not generalized until the twentieth century.
Bobby Reagan, a burly, retired construction worker, sat at the back of the bus with his wife. The other people on the tour had long since tired of his incessant flatulence, and loud stories about “loading a bobcat onto a beavertail”, and as a result, had moved to the front of the bus, leaving Bobby alone with his wife, Ethel. For the first time since leaving Wisconsin, Bobby sat in silence. He was bored of the landscape, and longed for a hot dog. He didn’t even want to come to Mexico, but Ethel had begged for a vacation, and Mexico was the best deal he could find. Now, as he gazed out at the vast expanse of nothingness, he could see why.
When you associate anything with New York City it is usually the extraordinary buildings that pierce the sky or the congested sidewalks with people desperate to shop in the famous stores in which celebrities dwell. Even with my short visit there I found myself lost within the Big Apple. The voices of the never-ending attractions call out and envelop you in their awe. The streets are filled with an atmosphere that is like a young child on a shopping spree in a candy store. Although your feet swelter from the continuous walking, you find yourself pressing on with the yearning to discover the 'New York Experience'.