The UMD Heritage Lectures 2015-2016

Heritage Resource Insecurity: Trafficking in Ruins with Lisa Breglia

Usually, "trafficking in cultural properties" calls to mind the illicit trade in valuable art and artifacts—paintings, sculptures, and artifacts. What if we extend the notion of trafficking in cultural property to emphasize illicit trade in properties themselves— the land containing ruins? This is precisely what is at stake in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. This discussion looks at the buying and selling of former communally held farmlands, known as ejidos, in and around well-known archaeological heritage sites in Yucatán. In a region dominated by organized crime and corruption, on the one hand, and intensive tourism development, on the other—ruins are highly valued by developers looking to gain a strong foothold in the ownership of vast swathes of the Peninsula. While the ruins may be highly valued for the touristic vision of development promoted by the Mexican state in collaboration with the private sector, ejido owners are paid pennies for their land in illicit, highly pressured deals to sell off their futures. This case study is an example of the “paradox of patrimony, ” demonstrating that 1) those who live and work in the midst of Mexico’s most valuable and strategic “national” resources are experiencing a newly found sense of insecurity and vulnerability as Mexico claims to be making gains in economic security across the national landscape and 2) that the link between new efforts to secure national patrimony and citizens' experiences of insecurity offer a new way to understand resource security.

Lisa Breglia is Associate Professor and Director of the Global Affairs Program and Global Interdisciplinary Programs at George Mason University. Her 2006 book, Monumental Ambivalence: the Politics of Heritage (University of Texas Press) examines the struggle over national patrimony between public interests and private sector development in Maya archaeological across the Yucatán Peninsula. Her book Living with Oil (2013, UT Press) is an ethnographic investigation of the effects of Mexico's intensive offshore oil industry on Gulf coast communities. Her current research focuses on the relationship between resource security and citizen security in contemporary Mexico.