Journal Article — Exploring Gloria Anzaldúa’s Methodology in Borderlands/La Frontera—The New Mestiza — by Jorge Capetillo-Ponce

Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera–The New Mestiza does not fit into the usual critical categories simply because she follows inclination of interest, as opposed to working at achieving systematization. Not only does she shift continually from analysis to meditation, and refuse to recognize disciplinary barriers, but she speaks poetically even when dealing with cultural, political, and social issues. Indeed her method, like Simmel’s, is more akin to “style” in art than it is to “analysis” or “inquiry” in the social sciences. A critic proclaims her/his own incompetence, however, if the mere fact that a text has a certain interdisciplinary quality scares him/ her away from her/his rightful task of elucidating its various historical, philosophical, sociological, psychological, and literary elements. In this article, I herewith take up that pleasant task, via this brief sketch pointing us toward a deeper comprehension of Anzaldúa’s Borderlands.