The Mystical and Militarized Desert
On the Spanish thriller Sirāt, the concept of Saharanism, and our reckoning with narratives about the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Newsletter
How Do You Live in a ‘Disabled Ecology’?
A new exhibition in Tucson commemorates community resistance to the borderlands’ military-industrial complex.
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The Mystical and Militarized Desert
On the Spanish thriller Sirāt, the concept of Saharanism, and our reckoning with narratives about the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Inside Trump’s Plan to Finish Walling Off the Rio Grande Valley
Even sites once protected by Congress, including a butterfly refuge and a historic church, are slated for fencing funded by the “one big beautiful bill”—while the river itself is transformed by a floating barrier.
Trump Announces “First New U.S. Refinery in 50 Years” at Port of Brownsville, Reviving Local Resistance
Environmental advocates and residents say the long-proposed refinery threatens air quality and public health in a region already ringed by heavy industry.
The Borderlands’ Lost Third Country
Mexican writer Álvaro Enrigue’s new novel, Now I Surrender, is an epic about the U.S. and Mexico’s joint erasure of Apachería.