Abstract

LEAL MARTINEZ, Alejandra. Danger, proximity and difference: negotiating social boundaries in Mexico City's Historical Center. Alteridades [online]. 2007, vol.17, n.34, pp.27-38. ISSN 2448-850X.

This article analyzes the ambiguous position of artists, students and young professionals who have settled in Mexico City's Historical Center within the context of the current "rescue" project in the area promoted by the local and federal governments together with the private sector. It also investigates the way in which such ambiguity is reflected on the (re)creation of class and social boundaries. For these people who inhabit the Historical Center, it involves a quotidian negotiation of proximity and difference against two horizons: their immediate physical and social environment and the "rescue" project, including the symbolic and material violence that accompanies it.

Keywords : social boundaries; ambiguity; habitability; violence; ethnography; Historical Center; middle classes.