| Summary: | In order to show how violent acts transform the geography of a border space, this essay examines the representation of violence in literary texts that define the US-Mexican border. In these narratives the characters’ continuous physical movement and personal interactions reaffirm or challenge hierarchal political and social power relations. These characters also search for a way to control their economic production, as well as the space that they physically occupy. The narration of violence in these Mexican border literary texts typifies a cultural production associated with narcoculture. Moreover, the prominent presence of violent acts in these texts scrutinizes social and ethical inquiries that influence the construction of a cultural imaginary and a socio-political space, which characterize the geography of the US-Mexican border. The environment or location where these characters live, acquires a symbolic role as an agent that represents their subconscious and social reality in order to demonstrate how violence becomes an integral social sign of normative cultural expressions in their lives. Finally, the main themes and images that these texts reproduce about violence, directly or indirectly, anticipate and delineate a state and a nation in crisis that culminates under the Felipe Calderón administration.
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