Imagined hydric communities and the fear front to disaster: the case of Valle de Chalco, Mexico

Abstract

This article discusses some aspects of the nature of power and the details understood here as the emotional structures which are articulated around the occurrence of disasters in the metropolis of Mexico, in a case study on the floods in Chalco. This is inquiring about the different facets of fear, emotion as an articulator of disasters: a) as an engine of political action that articulates a sense of traditional community, b) as coordinator of passive emotions shown as indifference; c) evidence of successive institutional dropouts, articulating itself an attitude resistance to government institutions in general. We conclude on the need for new approaches to the analysis of the emotional-urban city in the metropolis, taking into account particularly the non-social forms that affect, impact, modify, alter collective emotions, seen from an angle of community.

Keywords

• Community, fear, disaster, floods, Valle de Chalco, emotions.