“Fashioning the Borderlands” call for chapters

Editors: Marie Bravo-Moix and Yvette Chairez

This anthology is calling for chapters that theorize the subversive, surprising, and creative ways fashion comes to play in contemporary Latine/x performances and cultural productions. Building on the foundational scholarship of folklorist Norma Cantu and Hispanic studies scholar Regina Root, the editors aim to continue the work of documenting and theorizing how fashion trends and usages have manifested in and around the borderlands throughout the years. Cantu describes this manifestation as a “confluence”, explaining, “the effects of border crossings between Mexican, Latin American, and European aesthetics” construct “a visuality que no es ni de aqui ni de alla, neither from here nor from there - a phenomenon that occurs whenever two or more cultures meet” (2). This organic, inevitable visuality melds into unique clothing aesthetics that resist borders and break boundaries. Moved by such confluence, the editors invite scholarship that continues to expand our ideas of how fashion influences and is influenced by the borderlands.

Latine/x fashion on screen has long been informed, of course, by stereotypes of maids (Shelley Morrison as Rosario in Will and Grace), “spicy Latinas” (Eva Longoria as Gabriella in Desperate Housewives, and Sofia Vergara as Gloria in Modern Family), drug lords (Steven Bauer in Breaking Bad), or characters exhibiting a measure of cluelessness that signals they are an “alien other” (America Ferrera as Betty Suarez in Ugly Betty and Efran Ramirez as Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite). Fashion is not a hierarchical directive to Latine/x peoples, however, even if the media influences can be found within local expressive traditions. Contemporary productions like Only Murders in the Building and Wedding Season demonstrate this through the iconic fashion choices assigned to their Latina lead characters (Selena Gomez and Rosa Salazar, respectively) who are each leading unique, bordered existences hitherto unexplored in mainstream television.

The editors are interested specifically in how performances and productions fashion, if you will, the borders they are crossing and uniting. Again, how is fashion being utilized in subversive, surprising, and/or creative ways? What shifts, nuances, and new directions for analysis open up as a result? Submissions are invited to interpret “performances” and “cultural productions” broadly to include anything from the silver screen, to social media, to music, to activist work, and beyond. Likewise, submissions are welcome to interpret the “borderlands” as either geographical places where Latin American countries converge with other countries (via land, water, or imagination), or metaphysical spaces wherein we as Latine/x people experience emotions, situations, and issues of self-identification due to this convergence. “Fashion” is similarly open to interpretation and may refer to garments, beauty regimes, body art, etc. 

Though we are seeking theory-driven pieces, we welcome submissions that mix theory with ethnography or take the form of autohistoria teoria. We see this as an interdisciplinary collection drawing from knowledge bases across such diverse fields as (but certainly not limited to) media studies, rhetorical studies, the humanities, Latine/x studies, gender studies, cultural anthropology, and fashion studies. Some topics for exploration as they relate to fashioning the borderlands in contemporary Latine/x performances and productions are:

• Latine/xs utilizing fashion as ___
• Rhetorical fashion and Latinidad
• Latine/x theatre costuming
• Latinidad, clothing, and passing
• Themes in Latine/x beauty tutorials
• Shifting standards of Latine/x beauty
• Latine/xs and body modification  
• Latine/xs and contemporary fashion/beauty movements
• #Latinx #OOTD
• Politics of contemporary Latine/x fashion

Please submit a 350-400 word abstract with a brief bio to Yvette Chairez (yvette.chairez@utsa.edu) and Marie Bravo-Moix (rcx7@txstate.edu) by the date below. 

Abstract due by: August 4, 2023

Decision by: September 1, 2023

Full chapter draft due by: February 25, 2024

Edits to authors: March 31, 2024

Final with edits due by: June 30, 2024