Seven. Between Border Quarantine and the Texas-Mexico Border: Race, Citizenship, and National Identities, 1920–1942

2020 ◽  
pp. 236-273
Author(s):  
Chris Perriam ◽  
Darren Waldron

This book advances the current state of film audience research and of our knowledge of sexuality in transnational contexts, by analysing how French LGBTQ films are seen in Spain and Spanish ones in France, as well as how these films are seen in the UK. It studies films from various genres and examines their reception across four languages (Spanish, French, Catalan, English) and engages with participants across a range of digital and physical audience locations. A focus on LGBTQ festivals and on issues relating to LGBTQ experience in both countries allows for the consideration of issues such as ageing, sense of community and isolation, affiliation and investment, and the representation of issues affecting trans people. The book examines films that chronicle the local, national and sub-national identities while also addressing foreign audiences. It draws on a large sample of individual responses through post-screening questionnaires and focus groups as well as on the work of professional film critics and on-line commentators.


Author(s):  
Nasar Meer

The purpose of this chapter is to locate the discussion about Muslims in Scotland in relation to questions of national identity and multicultural citizenship. While the former has certainly been a prominent feature of public and policy debate, the latter has largely been overshadowed by constitutional questions raised by devolution and the referenda on independence. This means that, while we have undoubtedly progressed since MacEwen (1980) characterised the treatment of ‘race-relations’ in Scotland as a matter either of ‘ignorance or apathy’, the issue of where ethnic, racial and religious minorities rest in the contemporary landscape remains unsettled. One of the core arguments of this chapter is that these issues are all interrelated, and that the present and future status of Muslims in Scotland is tied up with wider debates about the ‘national question’. Hitherto, however, study of national identity in Scotland has often (though not always) been discussed in relation to the national identities of England, Wales and Britain as a whole.


Author(s):  
Roberto Alvarez

I utilize my situated position as anthropologist, academician, and citizen to argue not only that we should “think” California, but also that we should “rethink” our state—both its condition and its social cartography. To be clear, I see all my research and endeavors—my research on the US/Mexico border; my time among the markets and entrepreneurs I have worked and lived with; my focus on those places in which I was raised: Lemon Grove, Logan Heights; the family network and my community ethnographic work—as personal. I am in this academic game and the telling of our story because it is personal. When Lemon Grove was segregated, it was about my family; when Logan Heights was split by the construction of Interstate 5 and threatened by police surveillance, it was about our community; when the border was sanctioned and militarized it again was about the communities of which I am a part. A rethinking California is rooted in the experience of living California, of knowing and feeling the condition and the struggles we are experiencing and the crises we have gone through. We need to rethink California, especially the current failure of the state. This too is ultimately personal, because it affects each and every one of us, especially those historically unrepresented folks who have endured over the decades.


Author(s):  
Quratulain Shirazi

This article is based on a study of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), a novel by a Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid.  The novel is based on the  story of  transformation of an expat Pakistani living in New York from a true cosmopolitan to a nationalist. The article will explore the crisis of identity suffered by the protagonist in a new land where he reached as an immigrant  student and worker. However, he experienced a resurgence of nationalist and patriotic sentiments within him as 9/ 11 happened in 2001.  The force of American nationalism that was imperial in nature, resulting in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iran, triggered resentment in the protagonist who decided to leave America and went back to the country of his origin, Pakistan. During his stay in America, the protagonist redefined fundamentalism as an imperial tendency in the American system while rejecting the accusations hurled towards him of an Islamic fundamentalist. The article will explain that there is a loss of cosmopolitan virtue  in the post 9/11 era and the dream of universal peace and harmony  is shattered due to unbridled  state ambitions to invade foreign territories.   The article will conclude with the assertion that the loss of cosmopolitanism and reassertion of national identities give way to confrontation and intolerance destroying the prospects of peace and harmony in a globalized world.


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