Identity and Daily Space in Two Municipalities in Mexico City

Abstract

To analyze how different characteristics of daily space can construct an urban social identity, the author carried out an exploratory study in two Mexico City municipalities, one of them founded 35 years ago and the other 15 years ago. To obtain information on the use of the space, significant sites, and the value placed on social life, the author surveyed 100 people and observed socially relevant places. The presentation and analysis of the results explore different meanings of the information obtained on the formation of an urban social identity. In both places, local physical space was unimportant to the formation of identity traits. Results also showed the relevance of how value is placed, that is, the social meanings attributed to space. It is argued that the most important referent in the formation of an urban social identity is a generic notion of the urban against which the settlement is compared.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Augé, M. (1993). Los no lugares: Espacios del anonimato.Una antropología de la sobremodernidad [No places: Spaces of anonymity. Anthropology of overmodernity]. Barcelona, Spain: Gedisa.

Carr, S. , Francis, M. , Rivlin, L. , & Stone, A. (1992). Public space. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Fabian, J. L. (1996). El uso del espacio físico y su repercusión en la conformación de la identidad social de los jóvenes.Un estudio exploratorio en Valle de Chalco [Physical space usage and its effect on youth social identity formation in Valle de Chalco]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, México.

García Luna, M. (1992). Ciudad Nezahualcoyótl: De colonias marginadas a gran ciudad [Nezahualcoyótl City: From marginalized neighborhoods to a big city]. Toluca: Gobierno del Estado de México.

Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Guàrdia, J. , & Pol, E. (2002). A critical study of theoretical models of sustainability through structural equation systems. Environment & Behavior, 34, 137-149.

Instituto Nacional de Estadística , Geografía e Informática . (2000). XII Censo general de población y vivienda [XII General census of population and housing]. Aguascalientes, Mexico: Author.

Jacobs, J. (1989). The death and life of great American cities. New York: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1961)

Lindon, A. (1999). De la trama de la cotidianidad a los modos de vida urbanos.El Valle de Chalco [From daily routine to urban life styles. Chalco Valley]. Mexico City: El Colegio de México–El Colegio Mexiquense.

10.

Lynch, K. (1968). The image of the city. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

11.

Pol, E. (2002). The theoretical background of the City-Identity-Sustainability Network. Environment & Behavior, 34, 8-25.

12.

Proshansky, H. M. (1978). The city and self-identity. Environment and Behavior, 10(2), 147-169.

13.

Turner, J. C. (1987). Rediscovering the social group. A self-categorization theory. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

14.

Valera, S. , & Pol, E. (1994). El concepto de identidad social urbana: Una aproximación entre la psicología social y la psicología ambiental [The concept of urban social identity: Approximation between social and environmental psychology]. Anuario de Psicología, 62, 5-24.