Under the Mask: Creative Dis/Possessions of Borderlands Remembrance Practices

Authors

Lizzy Bentley, The University of ArizonaFollow
Joanna Sanchez-Avila, The University of ArizonaFollow

Abstract

Each November, thousands of people gather in the small downtown of Tucson, Arizona, for a ritualistic and participatory event known as the All Souls Procession. While the Procession has drawn criticism for the cultural appropriation embedded in many of its crafting practices, its stakeholders are hesitant to acknowledge a meaningful connection to Dia de los Muertos as they frame the procession as an “authentic" multicultural event. Rather than flattening our engagement with the All Souls Procession into an either/or binary by solely condemning its problematic dimensions or praising its creativity, we choose to embrace the event's complexity by continuing a both/and critical framework: a way of looking at the world that resists two-dimensional, binary categories. Our web-text takes the form of a multimedia scrapbook, a compilation of artifacts, sketches, sounds and snapshots that reflect our layered memories as well as the layered histories of the 2014 All Souls Procession. Through our craft, we invite you to explore some of the complexities of craft culture in community practice.

The original "webtext" is available on Internet Archive: Under the Mask (Wayback Machine website capture)

Embedded files are below, listed as Additional Files and included in the downloadable PDF.

About the Author(s)

Lizzy Bentley is a PhD student in English at University of Arizona. Her scholarship explores arts-based inquiry, transnational feminisms, and micro-practices for social change.

Joanna Sanchez-Avila is a PhD student in English at the University of Arizona. She is interested in the powerful potential of everyday stories which can be crafted through many ways such as spoken word, photography, or utilizing the 'style as resistance' ethos in the fashion.

DOI

10.15760/harlot.2015.14.4

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/39480

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Bentley, Lizzy and Sanchez-Avila, Joanna (2015) "Under the Mask: Creative Dis/Possessions of Borderlands Remembrance Practices," Harlot: A Revealing Look at the Arts of Persuasion: No. 14, 4.
https://doi.org/10.15760/harlot.2015.14.4