The Displacement of the Possible: Popular Experience and Gentrification at Historic Center of Mexico City

Abstract

This paper studies the displacement of popular sectors in the Historic Center of Mexico City as part of the gentrification process in this space. Particularly, it analyzes a form of displacement that the author defines as ‘the displacement in popular horizons of the possible’, and supposes a reinterpretation – from the characteristics of the gentrification processes in Latin America and the anthropologic fieldwork- of the definition of ‘exclusionary displacement’ proposed by Peter Marcuse. Displacement is analyzed through an ethnographic approach to some residential itineraries that account for popular sectors different rooting constructions during the second half of the twentieth century and the review of the permanence or disappearance of such conditions in the contemporary context.

Keywords

• urban renovation
• gentrification
• displacement
• popular sectors
• Historic Center of Mexico City
• Latin America