Nos/Otras Living in Nepantla: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Concepts of Borderland Identity in Contemporary World

Abstract

This text is devoted to Borderlands identity theory created by Gloria Anzaldúa, Mexican–American writer and activist, in the context of feminist criticism of women of color, or Third World feminism. The author discusses some of the most important concepts and theories created by Anzaldúa throughout her literary career such as: a vision of El Mundo Zurdo; the idea of bridging understood as a connection between women from different backgrounds; theory of inclusivity which encompasses various previously excluded categories of oppresion (ethnicity, sexuality, class, origin, etc.); the idea called New Tribalism; the concept of Nepantla; theory of nos/otras; and finally the idea of conocimiento, which is an alternative method of knowledge acquisition resulting from the awakening of consciousness. The major goal of the paper is to show how certain ideas, which have been present in literature and the humanities for many years, can now be applied in the contemporary world as a solution to the problem of incomprehension of differences between “us” and “others.”