Chapter Two. Hybridity, transnationalism, and identity in the US-Mexican borderlands

As well as distinguishing between hybridity and transnationalism, two separate but related processes produced by globalization, this chapter endeavors to theorize the effects on both sides of the border, no matter how asymmetric the embedded power relationship that the border itself represents. The chapter begins with an investigation of identity itself as a sociological concept through a discussion of the differences between individual and collective identities. The chapter concludes by agreeing that, while hybrid identities are characteristic of the borderlands, they can also be both border-crossing and border-reinforcing and are, therefore, not necessarily emancipatory. Thus, identity is seen in this chapter as a narrated, multiple, negotiated construct dependent on external markers and signs, and above all on the presence of tothers,t who both mirror and delimit private-individual and public-collective boundaries. Keywords: borderlands; emancipatory; Hybridity; Identity; sociological; Transnationalism; US-Mexican Borderlands