Borderlands, Nepantla and Interdependence: Some Notes about Onto-epistemology in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Work

Authors

Martha Palacio Avendaño, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, SpainFollow

ORCID

ORCID:0000-0003-0637-5826

Keywords

ontology of interdependence, feminist epistemology, postcolonialism, social belonging, borders, social justice

Document Type

Essay

Abstract

The purpose of this piece is to introduce some of the key concepts in Gloria Anzaldúa’s work. A Chicana feminist philosopher, Anzaldúa was born in a little town in Texas in 1942 and passed away in 2004. I am going beyond her idea of borderlands to point out that her idea of Nepantla offers multiple options for approaching our social reality, such as tracing diagnoses and evaluating the social conditions for the constitution of an emancipatory political subjectivity. Nepantla constitutes an analytical way for understanding the plurality of gender experience as well as a path of knowledge in the process of decolonizing our bodies. According to that, my thesis argues that Anzaldúa’s work can be useful to grasp a better understanding of the persistent effects of the colonizing process. We can say that the treatment of migrants in the EU and USA reflects the dichotomies in the assumption of a shared colonial past. This phenomenon, which permeates plural societies, is anchored in an individual ontology that hinders a joint review of the ways in which we have constituted ourselves as individuals and as collective subjects, but also as otherness. On the contrary, Nepantla or the space in between, lets us deepen an ontology of interdependence that does not elude conflict, but seriously considers overlapping social phenomena. It is a tool that can give us the chance of coming together to create other meanings, to imagine another world, and to constitute a different political kinship.

Recommended Citation

Palacio Avendaño, Martha (2025) "Borderlands, Nepantla and Interdependence: Some Notes about Onto-epistemology in Gloria Anzaldúa’s Work," Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis: Vol. 4: Iss. 3, Article 4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55533/2765-8414.1153
Available at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/emancipations/vol4/iss3/4