Pornography at the Border: Ethnosexual Borderscapes, Gendered Violence, and Embodied control

Abstract

This article analyses the pornographic genre of ‘border sex’, set on the US-Mexico border and produced in the US, which depicts uneven power relations taking shape at and through the border. I posit an interpretation of these representations that focuses on the use of institutionalised violence as a means of exerting control over female migrants’ bodies, reasserting a gendered territorial authority. This interpretation also highlights the intersectional aspects of inequalities and I propose an understanding of the embodiment of control and the US-Mexico border that shows the importance and potential of the theoretical and analytical tools of feminist geography to contribute to the critical border studies literature. Moreover, the article places itself in the tradition of popular geopolitics and plugs a gap in this stream of research and literature regarding online pornography and its importance in shaping imaginaries, not only with regard to sexual relations. This work draws on various theoretical traditions and analytical approaches to cover issues related to borders and border crossing from a feminist geopolitical standpoint, with a particular interest in the increasing embodiment of migration control in pornographic popular representations and in the intersection of various forms of inequality at the border. The representation of border patrols on the US-Mexico border in pornography is an interesting research field for a reflection on ethnosexual borderscapes and the border as a technology for reproducing inequalities and reaffirm power relations.