Taking the bus in peri-urban Mexico City

Bodily perspectives on own and urban becoming

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4476320
AutoresChristian Wissel (0000-0003-2226-3592, Technische Universität Braunschweig, autor correspondente), Christian Von Wissel (Institute for Theory of Architecture and Urbanism, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany)
Ano2016
Volume34
Fascículo6
Páginas1063-1079
Data de publicação2016-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0263775816647380
OpenAlexW2391154559
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas30

This paper explores the movement of bodies in urbanising landscapes. In particular, it looks at the bodily practice that unfolds at a 'bus stop made by stopping buses' in peri-urban Mexico City. Doing so, I pursue three questions: What are the specificities of bodily practice in the peri-urban realm and out of what socio-material conditions do they emerge? How does this practice sit within notions of informality and cityness? And what urban imaginaries do peri-urban practitioners 'grow' out of their direct engagement with the material environment, that is, in this case, when taking buses? The bus stop in question is located in the municipality of Tecámac, State of Mexico, in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City (ZMVM). It is a site of pure activity, social occurrence without being forged into built form; a site with 'nothing there' but the encounter of travellers and buses along the Mexico City-Pachuca highway. Carefully examining the seemingly banal activity of flagging down and boarding buses, however, allows us to take seriously the bodily and material dimensions of urban life and to acknowledge their influence on how city is made and thought. The paper draws on ethnographic research with a focus on visual and sensory methods

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Civil engineering · Ethnography · Ethnology · Geography · Metropolitan area · Mexico city · Nothing · Realm · Sociology · Urban planning · Engineering · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Public Spaces through Art