Touring Tepito: Commodification of Violence and Poverty or Resistance?

• In Event: Slums on Show: Poverty and Violence as Spectacular Commodity

Abstract

Tepito is one of the most notorious neighbourhoods of Mexico City and has a worldly reputation of a “no-go” zone. Oscar Lewis placed Tepito on a global map trough his book The Children of Sanchez and the neighbourhood remains to be of an interest to various researchers, journalists and artists. While Tepito’s reputation rests largely on high rates of poverty, criminality and informal markets, residents like to emphasize barrios’ cultural production and its resistance practices. It is in the context of these competing narratives that tours to Tepito started to emerge. A particular focus of the tours is on the neighbourhood’s market, its connections to the outside world (economic globalization from below) and the shrine La Santa muerte. The aim of the tours is to challenge the prevailing images of Tepito. This paper explores the historical and social context of Tepito tours and analyses representational strategies used by different actors to place Tepito on a world map. It looks at the ways identity of the neighbourhood is constructed through the tours and at how this identity is negotiated by different actors. Tepito is also placed within broader context of Mexico City where urban development strategy aims to revitalise city centre as an ideal location for economic investments, tourism and cultural consumerism. In the context of “destination making” of Mexico City the paper also tries to answer how Tepito tours challenge the image of the city as a tourist destination and whether such tours are supported by municipal actors or can they be understood as another resistance practice.

Author

• Barbara Vodopivec, LMU Munich, Germany