On Narco‐coyotaje: Illicit Regimes and Their Impacts on the US–Mexico Border

Many have debated whether or not human smugglers, known as coyotes, are involved with drug trafficking organizations. Scholars have largely rejected so‐called “narcocoyotaje”, however; we hope to problematize this narrative by adding a new theoretical layer to the discussion. Namely, we explore the ways in which different criminal activities produce hierarchies and control illicit activities within the clandestine geography of the US–Mexico border. These “illicit regimes” operate against the State, creating a hierarchy that dominates other illicit activities in order to maximize profit, avoid detection and consolidate power. While other studies have explored the relationships between the State and illicit practices this article takes the relationship between two illicit industries as its object of study. Doing so will help us move past the simply binary question about whether or not coyotes are involved with drug cartels, and allows us to understand what is being produced by this relationship, and its consequences for everyone involved.     

Queering the transnational turn: regionalism and queer Asias

In recent years, queer studies has increasingly interrogated the racial and colonial unconscious embedded in the earlier studies of non-normative genders and sexualities through the critical frameworks of queer of color critique and queer diaspora studies. This article aims to ‘queer the transnational turn’ by considering what critical edge ‘regionalism’ might bring to the investigation of queer modernities in Asia from both contemporary and historical vantage points. The introductory section of the article provides a broad overview of the ‘transnational turn’ in queer studies, what we diagnose as the ‘area unconscious’ of queer studies in its exclusive critique of Western colonial modernity, and the related binary of cultural particularism versus Eurocentric universalism. Alternatively, we argue that the concept of regionalism can be productively mobilized in order to study the various scales of queer sexualities that traffic within and circulate across Southeast Asia, Australia, imperial China, and contemporary Sinophone cultures (Sinitic-language communities on the margins of or outside mainland China). Through a paired reading of Johann S. Lee’s Singaporean queer novel, Peculiar Chris (1992), and Su Chao-Bin and John Woo’s Sinophone martial art film, the Reign of Assassins (2010), our inquiry accounts for how the spatial–temporal telos of global queering get materially translated across multiple regional hubs of sexual differences. Queer regionalism in Singapore, China, and the Sinophone worlds encompasses relational dynamics, power differentials, and subnational and supranational linkages. Finally, queering regionalism can open up new analytical frameworks for the study of sexualities and corporealities across transcolonial relations and wider temporal and spatial connections.     

Reviews

Wilfrid Blunt & William T. Steam, The Art of BotanicalIllustration, Woodbridge, Suffolk & Wappingers' Falls, New York: Antique Collectors' Club in association with The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1994. 368 pp., 133 col. and 140 b. & w. illus. ISBN 1-85149-177-5. £29.95.

Priscilla Boniface & Peter J. Fowler, Heritage and Tourismin in ‘The Global Village’, London & New York: Routledge, 1993. xiv + 175pp, 18 b.&w.illus. ISBN 0-415-07237-9 £15.99.

P. Devereux, Secrets of Ancient and Sacred Places: the world'smysterious heritage, London: Blandford, 1992, 192 pp., 169 Illus., ISBN 0-7137-2229-0, £16.99.

J.M. Fladmark, ed., Heritage: conservation, interpretation, enterprise, London: Donhead, 1993, 355 pp., 21 figs., 30 b.& w. illus. ISBN 1-873394-13-6. £35.

Roger Miles & Lauro Zavala (eds.), Towards the Museum ofthe Future. New European Perspectives, London & New York:Routledge, 1994. xiv + 203pp., 28 b. & w. illus. ISBN0-415-09498-4. £27.50.

Naomi Tarrant, The Development of Costume. London & NewYork: Routledge in conjunction with The National Museumof Scotland 1994. xv+176pp., 72 b.& w.illus. ISBN 0 41508018 5 £35.     

Organisational Needs and Priorities of Heritage Areas in the USA

Academics and practitioners alike know relatively little about the core competencies that are transferable from one heritage-area initiative to another. Often those new to the field have had to look to consultants or peers for advice regarding the essential core competencies needed to make their emerging organisations a success.This research surveyed the executive directors of the known universe of 154 heritage areas in the USA for the purposes of identifying the essential core skills they feel are needed to create and sustain a multi-jurisdictional heritage-tourism initiative. In addition, the importance-performance methodology employed in the survey instrument made it possible to assess their critical needs and priorities for training. Results of this study contributed to the design of the Heritage Development Institute, recently created to serve the executive staff of the nation's heritage areas at the College of Charleston on behalf of the Alliance of National Heritage Areas (www.cofc.edu/~heritage).