Tester

that “inclusion is itself, precisely,
a form of subjugation.” Juridically
abjected, flung from the body of
the nation, able to take up residence
in the space of the state only
when reduced to a kind of bare
life, “the ‘illegality’ of ‘undesirable’
migrants, then, supplies the crucial
feature of their distinctive, if disavowed,
desirability.”
Though the scene and the obscene
are inseparable, the Border
erotic payoff of the genre, however,
stems from its particular move
towards on/scenity: in the “plot”
of each film—insofar as her position
of precarity is leveraged to
extract sexual labor from her—the
obscene circumstance of inclusion
as exploitation remains. In this
rare instance, the entire obscene
power dynamic is made explicit;
but rather than unravel the Border
Spectacle, this “selective exposure”
Spectacle constantly refocuses attention,
naturalizing the former
and obscuring the latter. This doubled
optic regime permeates the
entire discourse, patterning the
way that border porn constructs
erotic tension. Each video presents
a veritable scene of exclusion, beginning
and ending with the migrant
women’s putative “illegality,”
deploying the usual signifiers in
an exaggerated mis-en-scène. The
reinforces it.
As de Genova notes, “the Border
Spectacle enhances the efficiency
of its own power precisely
through this sort of obscene intimacy,
whereby the ‘dirty secret’ of
migrant ‘illegality’...may be occasionally
revealed but must be generally
guarded through sanctimonious
acts of [...] dissimulation.”
By presenting the subjugation of
migrant labor (and its structur-
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