by Jennifer Jimenez, M.Arch 2021
Advisors: Thom Faulders (spring) & Brian Price (fall)
The hostile border between the US and Mexico uses tall metal fences as a fortification technique that not only symbolizes “de-fence,” it is also associated with violence, death, and separation. The never ending construction and reconstruction of the wall endangers wildlife, natural landscapes, and cultural ties between the two nations. Instead of maintaining these destructive traits, we need to think of the border as an attractor point—a place of shared communal exchange—not as a separator.
This thesis advocates for ways in which a feminist perspective can introduce a different take on the border—one where both nations can create a separate, but inclusive, binational space from these invisible systems that promotes transborder unity. According to Towards a Feminist Theory of Caring, by Berenice Fisher and Joan Tronto, caring should be view as, “a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web.”
Through methods of community stewardship, and ongoing cultivation, the border becomes a connective interface between occupants of a shared background. The people’s engagement is what sustains the architecture. The more care that each nation puts in will determine the vibrant interactivity of the border.