"World"-Travelling the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers: Zooming the Cracks between Worlds

In this article I reflect on methodological concerns that surfaced while I was conducting archival research of the Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Papers housed in the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. I articulate my concerns about how to account for the intangible aspects of the research process that impact scholars in profound ways, where after reading a passage or conducting an interview there are thoughts that linger in our minds. I apply Lugones's conceptualizations of worlds, "world"-travelling, and zooming to deliberate on ethical and decolonial archival reading strategies by paying particular attention to hermeneutic approaches to documents and ephemera. These tactics focus on the intangible process of meaning making that relates to feelings, anxiety, frustration, joy, and the construction of different realities that are part of the research process. I argue that Lugones's thought offers significant methodological hermeneutical strategies for archival research. I am adopting Lugones's ideas as methodological tools to interpret Anzaldúa's manuscript "Navigating Nepantla and the Cracks between Worlds." I propose that these hermeneutics provide decolonial ethical strategies for archival research that is committed to gender, raced, sexual, and classed social justice.