Sovereignty Claims over the Borderlands

“Chapter 4: Sovereignty Claims over the Borderlands” addresses the tensions between the image of smooth transborder collaboration put forward by inSITE in its early iterations and the inherent conflicts shaping life at the US/Mexico borderlands for a majority of regional residents. It contextualizes these tensions in a longer history of art production at the international border marked by clashes between San Diego's elite white establishment and Chicano/a cultural producers. The chapter engages in careful analysis of artworks by Terry Allen, Border Art Workshop/Taller de arte fronterizo, Marcos Ramírez (erre), Louis Hock, and Rubén Ortiz Torres. The chapter argues that inSITE helped facilitate the ongoing disassociation of the category of “Border art” from its origins in civil rights Chicano activism while reassociating this category with artistic forms trending in the global art industry.