My dissertation suggests a new approach to political and ethical questions surrounding immigration by providing an account of the ways that illegal aliens are constituted as subjects in the contemporary United States context. Through an analysis informed by Michel Foucaults description of normalizing power and Gloria Anzaldúas conception of mestiza identity, I analyze the constitution of the illegal alien on the United States southwest border in particular, both materially (in terms of locations of governmental institutions and disciplinary and regulative technologies) as well as symbolically (in terms of language, race, ethnicity and culture). In providing this account rooted in present struggles and interests as well as the work of Foucault, Anzaldúa and other feminist and critical race theorists, the dissertation is organized around different aspects of this type of subject as it is constituted by contemporary practices and discoursesas racialized, criminal, perverse and deathly. In so doing, I show how race, criminality, and perversion have themselves been reformed by their constitutive involvement with alienness, suggesting that an analysis of this form of subjectivity is central to understanding the way that normative power operates in these domains. By focusing on what I contend are central characteristics of illegal aliens as constituted in the contemporary United States context, I argue that this subjectivity functions differently from simple juridical categories which purport to determine it. For this reason, I suggest that resistance to oppressive structures of power with regards to immigration should be rooted in resisting the normalizing dichotomy I describe between the brown, criminal, and perverse anti-citizen and the white and virtuous citizen. I draw on Anzaldúas conception of Mestizaje show how the structures of power that constitute the alien anti-citizen might be reformed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07172012-103621 |
| Date | 24 July 2012 |
| Creators | Cisneros, Natalie Packard |
| Contributors | Charles Scott, Kelly Oliver, José Medina, Lisa Guenther, Linda Alcoff |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07172012-103621/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds