In April 2021, we will organize a Border Zone Community Forum in collaboration with our partner, Dr. Adela C. Licona, who is currently the Interim Executive Director of BorderLinks, a Tucson-based critical border education organization. A former faculty member at the University of Arizona involved in the study of border rhetorics, Dr. Licona is now a community organizer and artist who addresses the political challenges of our immediate border zone. Dr. Licona has agreed to curate the Community Forum, which will host presentations and/or installations by individuals or organization representatives engaged in critical pedagogy about the impact of neoliberal and neopopulist policies and actions in the southern Arizona/Sonora border zone.
The three guiding questions with which we anticipate launching this forum are:
- How did the neoliberal turn associated with NAFTA in the 1990s affect the social, cultural, political or natural environment and the human needs in our local border zone?
- What new developments and needs accompany the explosion of populist border policing today, including detentions, militarization, and wall-building?
- How might we teach about these various changes in the classroom or elsewhere?