Ecosystems Know No Borders: Reimaging Regeneration Through Transboundary Co-Existence | Spring 2023
Professor: Germán Pallares-Avitia, PhD
Location: Smeltertown | El Paso, TX
The Mexico - U.S. Border has become defined through the politics of spatial separation between nations, disconnected infrastructures, and the avaricious ambitions that settler colonialism has implored. The desert region continues to be portrayed as empty space ready to be occupied, exploited, extracted, and polluted as a result of the sovereign. The ramifications of these predatory actions are evident across the borderlands as the exploitative practices consider profit over preservation. These narratives are manufactured by the combination of competing state and economic interests with the material extraction of the uninhabitable desert region. Human intervention is determined through ownership, property, and control as strategies are limited by practicality rather than possibility. Even so, it is not impossible to reimagine human intervention through contrasting theories of knowledge or to consider the land by way of connection rather than separation.
The borderlands must be recognized as multidimensional, multifunctional, and multifaceted landscapes that are home to various beings. From migrant workers that raise their families across the borderzone to the group of Lechuguillas you see driving on Highway 85, the borderlands are temporary for some and permit for many. These systems exist collectively as they overlap, intertwine, join, and neighbor one another. Co-existence is the very basis of the borderlands as a landscape. However, as human intervention increases in these desert regions, co-dependence begins to infiltrate the natural balance of the environment. Lines have been drawn on the ground for ownership, property, and claim over land. Capital gain has rendered the borderlands profitable by means of extraction rather than exchange. Developing an intervention that denies these claims of ownership strengthens the natural order of coexisting ecosystems. The circle of life will continue to progress regardless of human intervention as long as these systems are restored.
Many of the ancestors and descendants of Smeltertown are in their final resting spot in the abandoned historic cemetery. Even so, the memories, legacy, and story of Smeltertown remain passed down to the next generation. Children of Smeltertown that are now adults remember the tight-knit community that served as a supportive environment through culture, ethics, and aspirations. Although portions of Smeltertown's history have been lost to time, the lasting impact of this community remains within the individuals who share these experiences. That is to say, these stories are worth documenting and preserving for both the community and to share the continuous power dynamics within the ownership of land. Land back centers on the inherent right to sovereignty and self-determination of indigenous beings, communities, and collectives. The erasure of indigeneity in Western ideology has ensured these practices are lost to time. Land that settler colonialism occupies continues to reinforce the injustices, displacement, and dispossession of Indigenous lands.
To consider a shift in the power dynamic is to reimagine the potential futures that could result. These futures have the ethics for coexistence and the possibility of regenerative fundamentals. Land return can address the social, economic, and environmental crises that have occurred due to occupation. These issues are not confined within themselves. The borderlands consistently encounter the occupational hierarchy as the region has been divided by ownership. The holistic approach of Indigenous beliefs and ethics emphasizes the importance of coexistence as all beings play equal parts in the larger system. These ecosystems rely on the niche groups of beings that support the larger community through participation. Nature persists on the basis of interaction between various species and life forms. From the mountains to the plants in the ground, these characters shaped the landscape to be full of life.
