A Review of The Other Border Wars: Conflict and Stasis in Latin American Culture
I remember reading with emotion during my adolescence “Juan López and John Ward,” the poem that the great writer of fantastic literature Jorge Luis Borges dedicated to the Falklands War of 1982. What moved me, I think, was the idea that two young men who could have been friends (united by their love of literature, in addition to belonging to the same generation and sharing the same name) saw each other face-to-face only once, but since that one encounter was during a war, each became both Cain and Abel.
Later, I had the chance to return to Borges’s work, including that poem, with less emotion and more years behind me. What captivated me then was Borges’s cleverness, so often capable of imagining similarity where perception discerns difference. “They buried them together,” the poem concludes. Juan and John rest in peace side by side, sharing the fate that war sought to deny them.
The Other Border Wars: Conflict and Stasis in Latin American Culture by Shannon Dowd (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024)
Shannon Dowd’s The Other Border Wars: Conflict and Stasis in Latin American Culture reminded me of Borges not only because of its subject—the Falklands War is one of the three case studies addressed in the book—but also because of its hermeneutic approach. Dowd argues that the Falklands War (1982) between the United Kingdom and Argentina, the Chaco War (1932–1935) between Bolivia and Paraguay, and the brief Soccer War (1969) between El Salvador and Honduras were not what they seemed. These wars (and, by extension, all border wars, as these are cases intended to support a general thesis) were not conventional military confrontations (polemos) to assert, defend or expand the territorial sovereignty of the nations involved. Instead, they were manifestations of internal (stasis) conflicts, latent or unfolding.
Starting from the fact that borders are arbitrary fictions, Shannon Dowd asserts—with the conceptual tools of philosophy and political theory—that wars for sovereignty between enemy nations obscure the true conflict underlying all border wars: the political struggle between groups within a community, nation or state. The book’s ambition is grand; it aims to convince us that issues of sovereignty or borders were never important. Instead, what has always and everywhere mattered is stasis. Even if we were to accept the premise, it would still be necessary to explain why these 20th-century Latin American wars had a specific singularity and particular significance for the proposed thesis.
The book aims to present both a theoretical and a historical proposition. However, the numerous historical studies that address the conflicts analyzed in the book occupy a marginal place, if any, in the narrative constructed by the author. That narrative is instead built on readings and new interpretations—some very compelling—of a set of cultural representations of the conflicts under analysis, such as novels, films or plays. For this reason, historians or social scientists reading this work may miss the historical and social contexts in which these conflicts took place, as well as the longer and more complex chain of events and meanings of which each was, though significant, a link.
Literary and cultural critics, especially in the Anglo-American academy, on the other hand, will find in this book an imaginative and original thesis that they can test through a different reading of the same cultural sources that inform this book or others about these conflicts—or even others entirely, since, as mentioned, the thesis claims to be universal. Where historians might see difference, the author of The Other Border Wars sees, like Borges, similarity.
Sebastián Carassai is a researcher at CONICET and Professor of the Introduction to Knowledge of the State and Society. He is author of Lo que no sabemos de Malvinas (2022), The Argentine Silent Majority (2014), Los años setenta de la gente común(2013) and, together with Kevin Coleman, of Coups d’État in Cold War Latin America, 1964-1982 (2025). In 2021-22 he wasDe Fortabat Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
Una Reseña de The Other Border Wars: Conflict and Statsis in Latin American Culture
Por Sebastián Carassai
Recuerdo haber leído con emoción en mi adolescencia “Juan López y John Ward”, el poema que el gran escritor de literatura fantástica Jorge Luis Borges dedicó a la guerra de Malvinas de 1982. Creo que lo que me emocionaba era la idea de que dos jóvenes que podrían haber sido amigos (los unía su gusto por la literatura, además del pertenecer a una misma generación y llevar el mismo nombre) se vieron solo una vez cara a cara, pero como esa sola vez fue una guerra, cada uno fue Caín y Abel.
Más adelante tuve oportunidad de volver con menos emoción y más años sobre la obra de Borges, inclusive sobre ese cuento, pero entonces lo que me cautivaba era el ingenio borgeano, tantas veces capaz de imaginar semejanza donde la percepción capta diferencia. “Los enterraron juntos”, dice al final de ese cuento. Juan y John descansan en paz uno al lado del otro, comparten el destino que la guerra quiso sustraerles.
The Other Border Wars. Conflict and Statsis in Latin American Culture por Shannon Dowd (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024)
Partiendo del hecho de que las fronteras (borders) son ficciones arbitrarias, Shannon Dowd sostiene, con el instrumental conceptual de la filosofía y la teoría política, que las guerras por la soberanía entre naciones enemigas ocultan el verdadero conflicto que subyace a toda guerra fronteriza: la guerra política entre grupos al interior de una comunidad, una nación o un estado. La ambición no es menor; se trata de convencernos de que las cuestiones de la soberanía o de las fronteras nunca fueron importantes. En su lugar, lo único que siempre y en todo lugar lo habría sido sería la stasis. Aún si aceptáramos la premisa, restaría explicar por qué en el siglo XX latinoamericano esas guerras habrían tenido una singularidad específica y una particular significación para la tesis propuesta.
La tesis del libro pretende ser al mismo tiempo una proposición teórica e histórica. Los numerosos estudios históricos que abordan los conflictos analizados en el libro, sin embargo, ocupan un lugar marginal, si alguno, en la narrativa que construye la autora. Esa narrativa se cimenta más bien a partir de lecturas y nuevas interpretaciones, algunas muy sugerentes, de un conjunto de representaciones culturales de los conflictos bajo análisis, como novelas, películas u obras de teatro. Es por eso que los historiadores o científicos sociales que lean este trabajo puede que echen de menos los contextos históricos y sociales en que esos conflictos tuvieron lugar, así como la cadena más larga y compleja de acontecimientos y significación de los que cada uno de ellos fue, aunque importante, apenas un eslabón.
Los críticos literarios y culturales, especialmente en la academia anglosajona, en cambio, encontrarán en este libro una tesis imaginativa y original que podrán poner a prueba en una lectura diferente de las mismas fuentes culturales que informan este libro o de otras sobre estos mismos conflictos o incluso sobre otros, en tanto que, como se mencionó, la tesis se pretende universal. Donde los historiadores verían diferencia, la autora de The Other Borders War ve, como Borges, semejanza.
Sebastián Carassai es investigador en CONICET y Profesor Regular Titular de Introducción al Conocimiento de la Sociedad y el Estado – Universidad de Buenos Aires. Es autor de Lo que no sabemos de Malvinas , The Argentine Silent Majority (2014), Los años setenta de la gente común (2013) y, junto a Kevin Coleman, de Coups d’État in Cold War Latin America, 1964-1982 (2025). En 2021-22 fue De Fortabat Visiting Scholar en el David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies de Harvard.
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