Borderliner Guest edited by Hannah Lowe First published in May 2021This guest edition deploys and renews the term borderliner (an obsolete and racist epithet for people of mixed heritage) as a catalyst for multiple, innovative discussions of issues of identity, race, ethnicity and language Border / Line Jay Gao “The dead poet is unable to tell me if he has or has not read ‘The Waste Land’.” The strangers Pema Monaghan "I’m running towards, not from – towards love, community, sometimes anonymity." The identity parade Johny Pitts “I look at the landscape of my childhood … spaces where mixedness took place: drum and bass raves, high-rise estates that served as canvases for a legendary graffiti scene, barbershops, illegal blues parties.” Diary 17-26 November 2019 Will Harris "I have a habit of leaning on homophonic coincidences and echoes. I guess they’re puns, but I don’t think of them like that." A world full of 'Johns' Arji Manuelpillai "I couldn’t be bothered with the long awkward introductory elocution lesson followed by the question: ‘Where does that originate from?’" Dear B Nina Mingya Powles “I can still hear your perfect pronunciation, your textbook tones. The way your voice went higher each time you crossed the border between the two languages we held inside our bodies.”
Border / Line Jay Gao “The dead poet is unable to tell me if he has or has not read ‘The Waste Land’.”
The strangers Pema Monaghan "I’m running towards, not from – towards love, community, sometimes anonymity."
The identity parade Johny Pitts “I look at the landscape of my childhood … spaces where mixedness took place: drum and bass raves, high-rise estates that served as canvases for a legendary graffiti scene, barbershops, illegal blues parties.”
Diary 17-26 November 2019 Will Harris "I have a habit of leaning on homophonic coincidences and echoes. I guess they’re puns, but I don’t think of them like that."
A world full of 'Johns' Arji Manuelpillai "I couldn’t be bothered with the long awkward introductory elocution lesson followed by the question: ‘Where does that originate from?’"
Dear B Nina Mingya Powles “I can still hear your perfect pronunciation, your textbook tones. The way your voice went higher each time you crossed the border between the two languages we held inside our bodies.”
