Alexandra von Barsewisch

Alexandra von Barsewisch holds an M.A. in European Ethnology and American Studies. Since June 2004 she is a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate College Program "Migration and Transnational Networks" at the European University Viadrina, Frankurt/Oder. Her Ph.D. project concerns transnational networks of the Kumeyaay in the Californias. She has done field work in Mexico and the United States, and has been a visiting scholar at University of Texas, Austin in Fall 2005. She has published in the magazines Revista Culturales and Scheinschlag. She has also been part of the student film project "Envelope Affectionately" on the cultural identity of the Lil' Wat Indians in British Columbia, which has been shown at the Oberhausen film festival, Germany, 2003.

Bordering on Images. A Cinematic Encounter at the US-Mexican Border

This paper discusses the representation of the United States-Mexican border focusing on two feature films, Traffic (2000) by Steven Soderbergh and The Garden of Eden (1994) by María Novaro, both situated, among other sites, in Tijuana, Mexico. The article seeks to demonstrate the implicit cultural perceptions of the respective "other side" of the border that are anticipated by the cinematic narrative and the formal constructions of these films. The border and its region are being addressed and mediated in complex and contradictory ways in both films. The degree, however, to which the border problematic is central to the respective film plots differs very much from one film to the other.

held at: Multiple Cultures - Multiple Perspectives. Questions of Identity and Urbanity in a Transnational Context, May 15-17, 2003