This paper develops a novel approach to anthropology and history of international borders. It proposes a typology and a phenomenological characterization of two kinds of border crossings that emerged alongside the new relationship of economic and political dependency that developed between México and the United States in the last quarter of the 19th century. The new border crossings involved the development of new 'chronotopes', in other words new and competing spatial-temporal matrices, used to frame the relationship between México and the United States. This paper analyzes the quality, nature and stakes of these alternative forms of historicity by way of a close case study of two pivotal journalistic texts: James Creelman's (1908) interview of General Porfírio Diaz, and John Kenneth Turner's (1910) reportage and exposé of Mexican slavery.
Border studies; Chronotopes; Dependency; México-US Relations; Race
