The reverse side of the community: on borders and exclusion in 'PornoBurka' and 'Cabezas cortada's

Abstract

Every community is based on an exclusion: the existence of an “us” in opposition to a “them”. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the mechanism through which this exclusion is produced and officially presented. Taking Roberto Esposito’s immune paradigm as a basis we approach PornoBurka (2013), by Brigitte Vasallo, and Cabezas cortadas (2018), by Pablo Gutiérrez, to reveal: firstly, the identification of the other as a threat that could break the community normality and, secondly, the experience of becoming that threatening other. In our analysis it is fundamental to pay attention to the body because on its surface are inscribed the marks that, indelible as scars, separate the included from the excluded, the normal from the abnormal, the known from the unknown. Fear of conflict or contagion, but also of the loss of identity, values or work turn otherness into a threat from which it is necessary to protect oneself. For this reason, immune barriers are established, which codify and name what is different according to preconfigured representational frameworks, which must be either assimilated or rejected.