Administración pública de nepantla: Transforming public administrators from ‘gatekeepers’ to ‘border crossers’

Abstract This article explores how Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) La Frontera/Borderlands theory can enable the field of public administration with conceptual and practical resources for responding to complex political problems; specifically, by offering strategies for critically analyzing us/them dichotomies in physical spaces and social structures, to then respond as administración pública de nepantla - public administrators in-between. Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera theoretical framework is applied to public administrators, who constituents often experience as “gatekeepers” to government’s power, to transform them into administrators capable of both/and thinking, who create new alternatives and solutions to social problems as “border crossers.” We specifically revise reliance on orthodox practices of dichotomous us/them, either/or thinking in favor of fostering inclusion of borderland dwellers, who forcibly live as outsiders of societal norms. Using conventional literature, we discuss the state’s role in creating borders for intentional racial discrimination in housing policy and offer administración pública de nepantla as a new paradigm for addressing this longstanding issue.