Patrolling Borders: Hybrids, Hierarchies and the Challenge of Mestizaje |
Patrolling Borders: Hybrids, Hierarchies and the Challenge of Mestizaje
Political Research Quarterly
Vol. 57, No. 4
pages 597-607
(2004)
DOI: 10.1177/106591290405700408
Cristina Beltran, Associate Professor of Political Science
Haverford College
“Hybridity” has become a popular concept among scholars of critical race theory and identity, particularly those studying Chicano identity. Some scholars claim that hybridity—premised on multiplicity and fluidity—represents a new approach to subjectivity, challenging the idea of a stable and unified subject. In “Patrolling Borders,” I argue that scholars are mistaken in their belief that “hybrid” or “bordered” identities are inherently transgressive or antiessentialist. By constructing a genealogy of Chicano hybridity (i.e., mestizaje) I show how Chicano nationalists produced a politicized subjectivity during the Chicano Movement that emerged as the basis for recent notions of hybridity put forward by writers like Gloria Anzaldúa. By tracing the historical construction of mestizaje, I show how hybridity continues to be a discursive practice capable of comfortably coexisting with dreams of privileged knowledge, order, and wholeness.
Read or purchase the article here.
Tags: Chicano Studies, Cristina Beltran, Gloria Anzaldúa, hybridity, Political Research Quarterly