Narrating the Frontier. La Cicatrice. Sul Confine tra Messico e Stati Uniti by A. Ferraris and R. Chiocca

Abstract

The wide diffusion of graphic novels depicting social mutations, economic and environmental crises, migratory flows, inequality, discrimination and the denial of human rights sees the comic as the protagonist and privileged means of expression in the representation of contemporaneity that allows you to study such phenomena from an interdisciplinary perspective. Within the depictions of minorities and marginalization, is proposed the study of La cicatrice. Sul confine tra Messico e Stati Uniti (2017), by Andrea Ferraris and Renato Chiocca, a graphic novel that focuses on the border between Mexico and the United States, the frontier for antonomasia that is associated with the image of an open wound, a rupture, a scar, in fact, and which allows us to reflect on the question of identity and the socio-cultural changes taking place. The graphic novel, whose narration is halfway between fiction and news and therefore on the border between literary genres, explores the complexity of the theme of migration through the direct testimonies of the protagonists who act as intermediaries and facilitators within the migration process.