Ficha Cuerpo Académico
Esp
Urban culture
Discipline Urban Anthropology
Academic Group In Consolidation
Year of registration: 2003
Members
Knowledge Generation and Application Lines
1.- The public and the private: imaginary construction and communication of the urban experience in cultural heritage, art and cultural industries.
2.- Conflicts in the use of urban space in historic centers.
3.- The metropolitan and the peripheral in urban experiences.
Description
1.- The research line discusses, through different approaches, the most relevant contradictions of contemporary culture that have led to what some specialists call the crisis of public space. Unlike other approaches that emphasize political or economic issues, this line of research aims to advance in the observation of these contradictions in the field of art and culture. In this sense, an extremely visible and highly topical field is that which has to do with heritage, which has become a disputed space in which companies, the media, public institutions and local communities intervene. The sam...
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1.- The research line discusses, through different approaches, the most relevant contradictions of contemporary culture that have led to what some specialists call the crisis of public space. Unlike other approaches that emphasize political or economic issues, this line of research aims to advance in the observation of these contradictions in the field of art and culture. In this sense, an extremely visible and highly topical field is that which has to do with heritage, which has become a disputed space in which companies, the media, public institutions and local communities intervene. The same is true of the media. Both examples, on the other hand, show us that the contradiction between the public and the private goes beyond the legal terms of ownership -public or private- and that, instead, narratives about the public and the private acquire a predominant place. At this point, art, literature, traditions and public cultural policies are a privileged territory to advance in the understanding of these contradictions.
2.- The historic downtowns of all cities generally have the capacity to symbolically represent the urban whole. This has happened in the case of Mexico City, which has one of the richest historic centers in Latin America. The historical conformation of this group of monuments and social relations has been a slow process and the understanding of the social, symbolic and patrimonial phenomena that operate there requires careful analysis. This line of research connects with the other two lines developed by the academic body in two ways: by studying the phenomenon of centrality as opposed to the processes observed in the periphery and, secondly, by analyzing the symbolic processes that operate in the center where a gradual shift from symbols that refer to the public to symbols that connect with the private can be observed.
3.- Urban analyses have privileged centrality. It is observed in this city in which most of the news or events refer to a very small part of the city, which is the historic center. On the other hand, the urban peripheries have little visibility. This line of research considers that the peripheral spaces are the most dynamic part of the city. They are where the most innovative architectural, urban, social and demographic processes take place. The city grows on its edges, but it also transforms itself in every sense and even engages in a symbolic dispute with the center. It has traditionally been engaged in an opposition between the public, the central, and the private, the peripheral, but this opposition is constantly changing. Since peripheral life is an experience that sometimes becomes dramatic, it is important for this line of research to understand the different ways of living in the metropolis, which in principle are differentiated by the different quality of the settlements: suburbs for the middle and upper classes, popular neighborhoods, suburban towns and new urban developments promoted by public or private corporations.
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