Arizona Anthropologist
ISSUE 20 Abstracts
Victoria M. Phaneuf and Derek D. Honeyman
Editor's Introduction to Issue #20
Dr. Barbara J. Mills
Preface
Dr. Brian L. Adams-Thies, Drake University
Sex, Borders And Identity Transvestism: Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men In The International Context Of The American Southwest
Abstract: This article addresses the various ideological constructions of the US-Mexican border from the perspective of Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men. These men constructed the border through the assignation of various qualities supposedly inherent inbodies and landscapes. In engaging in these assignations, this article will argue that in fact these men embody ideologies that create the border as not just a mark in the geopolitical landscape but also as a lived and practiced reality. The border is therefore a bodily experience of regimes of power-knowledge-pleasure (Foucault) which allows borderlanders to manipulate these regimes for vari ous reasons including: avoiding social injury; use of specific zones of the body; and engaging in identity transvestism. Overall, this article engages queer theory; borderland theory; and demonstrates the complexity of the border as a lived and embodied phenomenon.
Keywords: borderlands; queer studies; sexuality
Dr. Jessica Piekielek, Millsaps College
Re-Framing The U.S.-Mexico Border: A Non-Profit Educational Program On Border And Migration Issues
Abstract: This article explores the work of a binational non-profit organization that offers travel seminars designed to educate U.S. citizens about the social, economic, and political realities of the U.S.-Mexico border through direct interactions in border communities. These educational trips offer a unique opportunity to explore individuals’ perceptions of the U.S.-Mexico border and undocumented migration, as those perspectives are developed and revised through personal experience. This article examines the ways in which the organization and its participants describe the U.S.-Mexico border region- its physical, social, and political landscapes- as well as border residents and migrants. Contextualized within wider national debates on the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration, participants’ narratives suggest the possibility of an alternate social imagination of the relationships between U.S. and Mexican states and residents.
Keywords: U.S.-Mexico border, social movements, collective action, frames
Annika Ericksen, University of Arizona
Productions of Space In Tuareg History: Power, Marginalization, And Resistance
Abstract: Tuareg pastoralists commanded a system of trade and production in the western Sahel prior to French colonization, but events in the 20th Century rendered them marginalized and vulnerable to climatic shocks, as evidenced by the Sahelian drought of the 1970s. This paper begins with a discussion of how the Tuareg exploited the landscape and social relations of production prior to colonization. It then describes colonial re-ordering of space in what is now Niger through the displacement of the Tuareg nobility. The first disastrous drought of the postcolonial era triggered another transformation of space as respondents to the crisis challenged the logic of pastoralists’ land use and implemented alternative models of production. Finally, the paper considers how some Tuareg are both re-establishing broad territories through new forms of mobility and attempting to seize greater control over resources and development processes in their homeland.
Keywords: nomadic pastoralism; colonialism; development; production of space
Karin Friederic, University of Arizona
Notes From The Field: The Negotiation Of Boundaries: Anthropological Clichés, Witnessing And Honest Self-Work
Anton Daughters, University of Arizona
Notes From The Field: Juan Bautista And The Importance Of History
Nathalie Boucher, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Centre Urbanisation, Culture et Société, Canada
Notes From The Field: Is My Fieldwork Compromised If I Don’t Have A Car In Los Angeles?