Embodying the Borders: Threads from Mexico and South Asia

The objective of this paper is to analyze the experience of stress and anxiety of the female body at the border and in zones of conflict. We focus on the way in which this trauma is expressed in the work of women writers of Mexico and South Asia. The paper is connected to a practice-based research art project entitled Zan, which encompasses our personal, professional, and geographic identities. Zan shares perspectives on gender, borderlands, discrimination, sexuality, and violence, while informing artistic conceptions as well. One of the main goals is to highlight the women’s voices of the two regions and engage them in conversation in a space in which distant geographies converge.