A Bridge that Divides: Hostile Infrastructures. Coloniality and Watchfulness in San Diego, California
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A Bridge that Divides: Hostile Infrastructures. Coloniality and Watchfulness in San Diego, California
Alderman, Jonathan | Whittaker, Catherine
Sociologus, Vol. 71 (2021), Iss. 2 : pp. 153–174
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Jonathan Alderman, Collaborative Research Center 1369 ‘Cultures of Vigilance’, LMU Munich, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Munich.
Catherine Whittaker, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60629 Frankfurt/Main.
References
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Hernández, R. D. 2018. Coloniality of the US/Mexico Border: Power, Violence and the Decolonial Imperative. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
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Hidalgo, J. M. 2016. Revelation in Aztlán Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement. New York: Pelgrave MacMillan.
Google Scholar -
Howe, C. et al. 2016. Paradoxical Infrastructures: Ruins, Retrofit, and Risk. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 41(3), pp. 547–565.
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Kirszbaum, T. 2019. Urban Renewal in the USA: A Neoliberal Policy? Métropolitiques. Available at: <https://metropolitics.org/Urban-Renewal-in-the-USA-A-Neoliberal-Policy.html> (Accessed: 22 Feb. 2022).
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Larkin, B. 2013. The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure. Annual Review of Anthropology, 42(1): pp. 327–343.
Google Scholar -
Latorre, G. 2008. Walls of Empowerment: Chicana/o Indigenist Murals of California. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Google Scholar -
Lemanski, C. 2019. Infrastructural Citizenship: The Everyday Citizenships of Adapting And/Or Destroying Public Infrastructure in Cape Town, South Africa. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45 (3), pp. 589–605.
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May, T. 2010. Contemporary Political Movements and the Thought of Jacques Rancière: Equality in Action. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
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McCaughan, E. J. 2020. ‘We Didn’t Cross the Border, the Border Crossed Us’: Artists’ Images of the US-Mexico Border and Immigration. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2 (1): pp. 6–31.
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Moraga, C. L. & Anzaldúa, G. (eds.) 1983 [1981]. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
Google Scholar -
Quijano, A. 2008. Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Social Classification. In M. Moraña, E. Dussel and C. A. Jáuregui (eds.), Coloniality at Large: Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate, pp. 181–223. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
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Rancière, J. 1992. Politics, Identification, and Subjectivization. October 61 (The Identity in Question), pp. 58–64.
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Rancière, J. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. London: Continuum.
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Rancière, J. 2014. Contemporary Art and the Politics of Aesthetics. In B. Hinderliter et al. (eds.), Communities of Sense: Rethinking Aesthetics and Politics, pp. 31–50. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
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St John, R. 2011. Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Star, S. L. 1999. The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist, 43 (3), pp. 377–391.
Google Scholar -
Talamantez, J. S. 2011. Chicano Park and the Chicano Park Murals: A National Register Nomination. Master Thesis, California State University, Sacramento.
Google Scholar -
Taylor, L. D. 2002. The Wild Frontier Moves South: U.S. Entrepreneurs and the Growth of Tijuana’s Vice Industry, 1908–1935. The Journal of San Diego History, 48 (3): 204–229.
Google Scholar -
Watts, B. 2004. Aztlán as a Palimpsest. From Chicano Nationalism toward Transnational Feminism in Anzaldúa’s Borderlands. Latino Studies, 2, pp. 304–321.
Google Scholar -
Whittaker, C., Dürr, E., Alderman, J. & Luiprecht, C. Forthcoming. Watchful Lives in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Google Scholar -
Yeh, R. 2017. Passing: Two Publics in a Mexican Border City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Google Scholar -
Aaronson, D., Hartley, D. & Mazumder, B. 2019. The Effects of the 130s HOLC ‘Redlining’ Maps. Working Paper. Federal Reserve of Chicago.
Google Scholar -
Alderman, J. 2022. Watchfulness in the US-Mexican Borderland. SFB 1369 Vigilanzkulturen, Mitteilungen 01/2022, pp. 11–19. Munich: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.
Google Scholar -
Alderman, J. & Goodwin, G. 2022. Introduction: Infrastructure as Relational and Experimental Process. In J. Alderman & G. Goodwin (eds.), The Social and Political Life of Latin American Infrastructures, pp. 1–26. London: University of London Press.
Google Scholar -
Amit, V. 2020. Rethinking Anthropological Perspectives on Community: Watchful Indifference and Joint Commitment. In B. Jansen (ed.) Rethinking Community through Transdisciplinary Research, pp. 49–67. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Google Scholar -
Anguiano, M. n.d. The Battle of Chicano Park: A Brief History of the Takeover. Chicano Park Steering Committee. Available at: <https://chicano-park.com/cpscbattleof.html> (Accessed: 20 Jun. 2022).
Google Scholar -
Anzaldúa, G. 2002. (Un)Natural Bridges, (Un)Safe Spaces. In G. Anzaldúa and A. Keating (eds.), This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, pp. 1–5. New York, London: Routledge.
Google Scholar -
Anzaldúa, G. 2012 [1987]. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
Google Scholar -
Appadurai, A. 1997. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Google Scholar -
Appel, H., Anand, N. & Gupta, A. 2018. Introduction: Temporality, Politics, and the Promise of Infrastructure. In N. Anand, A. Gupta & H. Appel, (eds.), The Promise of Infrastructure, pp. 1–38. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Google Scholar -
Avila, E. 2014. The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Google Scholar -
Barenboim, D. 2016. The Specter of Surveillance: Navigating ‘Illegality’ and Indigeneity among Maya Migrants in the San Francisco Bay Area. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 39 (1), pp. 79–94.
Google Scholar -
Barrio Bridge. 2020. The Chicano Park Steering Committee Objects to Sepolio Early Release. Available at: <https://www.facebook.com/298152410237632/photos/a.298647426854797/3699360696783436> (Accessed: 20 Jun. 2022)
Google Scholar -
Barth, F. 1969. Introduction. In F. Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, pp. 9–57. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget.
Google Scholar -
Boyer, D. 2017. Revolutionary Infrastructure. In P. Harvey, C. Bruun Jensen and A. Morita (eds.) Infrastructures and Social Complexity: A Companion, pp. 174–186. London & New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar -
Chavez, L. 2013. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
Google Scholar -
Chu, J. Y. 2014. When Infrastructures Attack: The Workings of Disrepair in China. American Ethnologist, 41(2), pp. 351–367.
Google Scholar -
Cohen, A. P. 1996. Personal Nationalism: A Scottish View of Some Rites, Rights, and Wrongs. American Ethnologist, 23 (4), pp. 802–815.
Google Scholar -
Delgado, K. 1998. A Turning Point: The Conception and Realization of Chicano Park. The Journal Journal of San Diego History, 44(1), pp. 48–61.
Google Scholar -
Dürr, E. & Whittaker, C. 2021. “Go back to your country!” Wachsamkeit, Wissen und Kolonalität im US-mexikanischen Grenzraum. Ila – Lateinamerika-Magazin, 449, pp. 4–6.
Google Scholar -
Frekko, S. E., Leinaweaver, J. B. & Marre, D. 2015. How (Not) to Talk about Adoption: On Communicative Vigilance in Spain. American Ethnologist, 42(4), 703–719.
Google Scholar -
Galaviz, M. G. 2012. Expressions of Membership and Belonging: Chicana/o Cultural Politics in Barrio Logan. M.A. thesis, California State University, San Bernardino.
Google Scholar -
Goldstein, D. M. 2012. Outlawed: Between Security and Rights in a Bolivian City. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Google Scholar -
Gutiérrez, R. A. 2016. What’s in a Name? The History and Politics of Hispanic and Latino Panethnicities. In R. A. Gutiérrez and T. Almaguer (eds.), The New Latino Studies Reader, pp. 19–53. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Google Scholar -
Harvey, P. & Knox, H. 2015. Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Google Scholar -
Harvey, P., Bruun Jensen, C. & Morita, A. 2017. Introduction: Infrastructural Complications. In P. Harvey, C. B. Jensen, and A. Morita (eds.), Infrastructures and Social Complexity: A Companion, pp. 1–22. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar -
Hernández, R. D. 2018. Coloniality of the US/Mexico Border: Power, Violence and the Decolonial Imperative. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Google Scholar -
Hidalgo, J. M. 2016. Revelation in Aztlán Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement. New York: Pelgrave MacMillan.
Google Scholar -
Howe, C. et al. 2016. Paradoxical Infrastructures: Ruins, Retrofit, and Risk. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 41(3), pp. 547–565.
Google Scholar -
Kirszbaum, T. 2019. Urban Renewal in the USA: A Neoliberal Policy? Métropolitiques. Available at: <https://metropolitics.org/Urban-Renewal-in-the-USA-A-Neoliberal-Policy.html> (Accessed: 22 Feb. 2022).
Google Scholar -
Kucher, K. & Figueroa, T. 2020. Driver Who Killed 4 in Chicano Park Crash Set for Early Prison Release; DA Calls the Move ‘Unconscionable’. The San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 4, 2020. Available at: <https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2020-11-04/driver-who-killed-4-in-chicano-park-crash-set-for-early-prison-release-da-calls-the-move-unconscionable> (Accessed: 27 June 2021).
Google Scholar -
Larkin, B. 2013. The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure. Annual Review of Anthropology, 42(1): pp. 327–343.
Google Scholar -
Latorre, G. 2008. Walls of Empowerment: Chicana/o Indigenist Murals of California. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Google Scholar -
Lemanski, C. 2019. Infrastructural Citizenship: The Everyday Citizenships of Adapting And/Or Destroying Public Infrastructure in Cape Town, South Africa. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45 (3), pp. 589–605.
Google Scholar -
May, T. 2010. Contemporary Political Movements and the Thought of Jacques Rancière: Equality in Action. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Google Scholar -
McCaughan, E. J. 2020. ‘We Didn’t Cross the Border, the Border Crossed Us’: Artists’ Images of the US-Mexico Border and Immigration. Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2 (1): pp. 6–31.
Google Scholar -
Moraga, C. L. & Anzaldúa, G. (eds.) 1983 [1981]. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
Google Scholar -
Quijano, A. 2008. Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Social Classification. In M. Moraña, E. Dussel and C. A. Jáuregui (eds.), Coloniality at Large: Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate, pp. 181–223. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Google Scholar -
Rancière, J. 1992. Politics, Identification, and Subjectivization. October 61 (The Identity in Question), pp. 58–64.
Google Scholar -
Rancière, J. 2010. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. London: Continuum.
Google Scholar -
Rancière, J. 2014. Contemporary Art and the Politics of Aesthetics. In B. Hinderliter et al. (eds.), Communities of Sense: Rethinking Aesthetics and Politics, pp. 31–50. Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Google Scholar -
Reeves, M. 2017. Infrastructures of Hope: Anticipating ‘Independent Roads’ and Territorial Integrity in Southern Kyrgyzstan. Ethnos, 82 (4), pp. 711–737.
Google Scholar -
Rosen, M. D. & Fisher, J. 2001. Chicano Park and the Chicano Park Murals: Barrio Logan, City of San Diego, California. The Public Historian, 23 (4), pp. 91–111.
Google Scholar -
Rothstein, R. 2017. The Colour of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York & London: Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Google Scholar -
Simmel, G. [1909] 1994. Bridge and Door. Theory, Culture and Society, 11, pp. 5–10.
Google Scholar -
St John, R. 2011. Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Google Scholar -
Star, S. L. 1999. The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist, 43 (3), pp. 377–391.
Google Scholar -
Talamantez, J. S. 2011. Chicano Park and the Chicano Park Murals: A National Register Nomination. Master Thesis, California State University, Sacramento.
Google Scholar -
Taylor, L. D. 2002. The Wild Frontier Moves South: U.S. Entrepreneurs and the Growth of Tijuana’s Vice Industry, 1908–1935. The Journal of San Diego History, 48 (3): 204–229.
Google Scholar -
Watts, B. 2004. Aztlán as a Palimpsest. From Chicano Nationalism toward Transnational Feminism in Anzaldúa’s Borderlands. Latino Studies, 2, pp. 304–321.
Google Scholar -
Whittaker, C., Dürr, E., Alderman, J. & Luiprecht, C. Forthcoming. Watchful Lives in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Google Scholar -
Yeh, R. 2017. Passing: Two Publics in a Mexican Border City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Google Scholar
Abstract
Abstract
The construction of the Coronado Bridge, completed in 1969, over Barrio Logan in San Diego in the US-Mexico borderlands physically manifests relations of coloniality that those in the neighbourhood experience on a daily basis. Drawing on anthropological approaches and the philosophy of Jacques Rancière, this article examines the unintended consequences of infrastructure construction. We reveal how political subjectivity develops through actions contesting the inequality that the infrastructure represents by focusing on residents’ creation of a community park below the bridge. We argue that a shared watchfulness over the park by its local guardians is central to the formation of their subjectivity and that the aesthetics of the park challenge dominant notions of belonging and temporality within the United States.
Table of Contents
Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
---|---|---|---|
Jonathan Alderman / Catherine Whittaker: A Bridge that Divides: Hostile Infrastructures, Coloniality and Watchfulness in San Diego, California | 153 | ||
Abstract | 153 | ||
1. Introduction | 153 | ||
2. The politics and aesthetics of infrastructure | 157 | ||
3. Migration into San Diego and development of the neighbourhood of Barrio Logan | 160 | ||
4. A bridge that connects and divides | 162 | ||
5. Building Chicano Park and watching out over Aztlán | 164 | ||
6. Conclusion | 170 | ||
References | 171 |