Gender and the Global West

Abstract

With its long history of geopolitical conflict and ongoing crises stemming from climate change, economic uncertainty, and other forms of political instability, the American West is a region whose borders and identities are continually challenged and contested. As new crises and developments draw national attention to the region, various diasporic, migrant, and minority communities in the West are becoming increasingly vulnerable, at times targeted or scapegoated for these disruptions and changes. A number of women writers are bearing witness to these developments, countering narrow understandings of the region as well as efforts to control its real and imagined borders. Recognizing the many ways in which the local is often called into being by developments taking place elsewhere, these women writers extend our political and literary imaginations in order to call into being a more open and equitable region where vibrant identities and sustainable futures may flourish. Drawing on scholarship in critical race studies, gender theory, borderlands criticism, and postwestern studies, this chapter examines how contemporary women writers such as Valeria Luiselli, Fernanda Melchor, Solmaz Sharif, Nicole Chung, Cristina Rivera Garza, Lauren Francis-Sharma, Octavia Butler, and Louise Erdrich are reconfiguring the American West through global perspectives while foregrounding stories about families, women, and children. In doing so, their work pushes scholars to adopt a less restricted vision that is able to look across borders and boundaries, thus extending our political and literary imaginations in order to develop more inclusive and equitable futures.