Partnership Through Pragmatism

The Sino-European relationship has been relatively harmonious for approximately 30 years since the end of the Cold War.Differing political ideologies and some disagreements have not reduced either side’s appetite for cooperation.Last year was difficult and intense in comparison to previous ones,due to the European Parliament’s non-ratification of a comprehensive EU-China investment agreement,frictions regarding contradictory interpretations of human rights.     

Structuring dissident desire: representations of same-sex prison contact in contemporary South African culture

The figure of the prisoner, particularly as associated with the Numbers gangs in South African prison gangs, is both a hyper-masculine and (homo-)eroticized character. Prison allows for a state of being queer that, through its subject having already been criminalised, and escapes the stigma of feminization associated with it in the hierarchically gendered society outside of prison. Through the structure of the gang and in the confines of the prison, same-sex desire is at the centre of criminality and masculinity. At the same time, prison allows a space in which same-sex desire is countenanced; it thus becomes a literary setting fraught with same-sex eroticism. This essay considers the extent to which the masculinities of prison have become conflated with notions of an eroticized homosexual threat and the politics and fates of such threat inside and outside the jail walls. It reads a film (Proteus, 2003), non-fiction text (The Number, 2010, by Jonny Steinberg), short fiction (by Jan van Tonder), and play (Tertius Kapp’s Rooiland, 2013).     

Environmental management and street-level regulators: A cultural trap?

It has been argued that environmental management is in an administrative trap. Numerous factors leading to this trapped situation have already been identified in the literature: institutional rigidity, lack of co-ordination, formalization, non-accountability and political interference. This study focusses on the organizational, cultural dimension of the administrative trap and argues that in order to reform administrative structures, the organizational culture must also be reformed. On the basis of several face-to-face interviews with street-level environmental regulators in Hong Kong, the study claims that a role-oriented, hierarchical culture exists. While such an organizational culture is in perfect agreement with existing administrative arrangements, it may, in the end, hamper the effectiveness of environmental management.