PATHWAYS AND FOOTSTEPS IN DETENTION: MIGRANTS’ AND PRISONERS’ TRANSLUCENCY – MEXICO/ U.S. BORDER

How do female prisoners escape their cells in order to be seen at the borders of nations, institutions and disciplines? How do obscured migrants and prisoners leave traces within systems oriented to repress and disappear them? Professor Marisa Belausteguigoitia explores these questions through the trope of translucence, that combination of light and shadow that shows the contours of an obscured object without rendering it fully clear. Through videos and images that tell the story of how prisoners in Mexico City escaped their cells and came together with migrants at the US border, Prof. Belausteguigoitia illuminates their conjoined presence, voices, and forms of resistance against the conjoined violence in Mexico and the United States today.