Surveilled Mourning: Memorializing Deaths in the Sonoran Desert

The weaponization of the Sonoran Desert is central to the 1994 U.S. immigration policy Prevention through Deterrence as a means of not only endangering migrants, but effectively erasing their deaths. In this talk, Dr. Quintanilla explores how artists and activists have turned to digital methods to memorialize migrant deaths as a means of remembrance and resistance. These efforts draw our attention to contemporary surveillance practices and the complexity of visibility along the border. 

Bio :Alyssa Quintanilla (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of English at the United States Naval Academy. Her book project, currently entitled, Markers, Monuments, Memorials in the United States-Mexico Borderlands, centers on the performances and practices of mourning and the objects created to remember, acknowledge, and visualize the dead. She is also the creator of Vistas de la Frontera, a digital memorial for migrants who have died while crossing the Sonoran Desert of Southern Arizona. Her work has been published in Lateral Journal of the Cultural Studies Association, MAST: The Journal of Media Art Study and Theory, and The Digital Review. She is currently the David J. Weber Fellow for the Study of Southwestern America at the Clements Center for Southwestern Studies.