Crossing and Reading: <i>Notes towards a Theory and a Method</i>

Abstract

Here I wish to propose a theoretical basis for a border poetics by thinking through the border not in its static and mapped configurations, but from the processual and embodied perspective of the border-crossing narrative. I will be suggesting a set of seven processes involved in the act of crossing a border, implicating in turn a model of five border planes with which to organize a border reading. I will also be discussing the implications of these processes and planes for reading such crossings in literature and other narrative. The numbers seven and five must be taken as tentative; I have yet to find any secure argument justifying these divisions beyond that of experience with different border readings. Indeed, what follows takes as its premise that the border and thus the border crossing can only be seen from particular, embodied viewpoints and are ultimately unmappable. Crossing over into the realm of border theory is like any other border crossing: marked by the crossing, we both enter a new realm and cut ourselves off from it by bringing the border with us. In our negotiations, the border is liable to shift and change; and entering into border theory, we must allow for the possibility that our conception of the border may be transformed and that any particular theory or principle of the border may lose its meaning. It has been argued that all border studies are implicated at some point in a politics of power, and it seems to me imperative not to lock such efforts into a formation not open to revision. These proposals and reflections take as their departure point a minimal narrative of the border which may be formulated as follows: The crossing of the border involves the passage of the border-crosser from one territory to another, and the passage is marked by the border. For example, the novel Cysgod y Cryman (1953; trans. as The Shadow of the Sickle) by