734540

research-article2017
SACXXX10.1177/1206331217734540Space and CultureBayon and Saraví

Article
Space and Culture
2018, Vol. 21(3) 291­–305
Place, Class Interaction, and © The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1206331217734540
https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331217734540
Inequality in Mexico City journals.sagepub.com/home/sac

Maria Cristina Bayón1 and Gonzalo A. Saraví2

Abstract
Based on ethnographic research conducted in wealthy and deprived areas of Mexico City, this
article analyzes and discusses the contribution of place and class interaction in shaping urban
segregation. Spatial isolation and social homogeneity are both the result of structural forces and
cultural processes embodied in individual practices. Focusing on cultural processes, three main
issues are explored: “the sense of place” in poor peripheries; the experience of “being-in-place,”
or “being-out-of-place” among people coming from disadvantaged and privileged backgrounds;
and the process of “othering” in urban encounters between social classes. We conclude that
current processes give a new character to the experience of urban inequality, which deeply
erodes social coexistence, recognition, and solidarity.

Keywords
class interaction, othering, Mexico City, urban segregation

Introduction
One of the most eloquent evidences of social inequality in Latin America is the experience of
urban life in its megacities. As Marcuse (2009) would say, social injustice always has a spatial
form, and this is clear in the Latin American urban landscape. While spatial contrasts have an
undoubted material basis, they are also the result of a sociocultural construction of urban space.
Moreover, urban segregation needs to be reexamined through the lens of power; othering and
stigmatization processes are dependent on power (Link & Phelan, 2001).
The experience of the city is not just a subjective and sensitive approach to reality; it is a con-
struction of that reality. Urban segregation is a process emerging both from material dimensions
and culturally driven perceptions, meanings, and feelings attached to different spaces. Individual
and social groups’ experiences of the city shape urban sociability and mobility, residential pat-
terns, the use of public spaces, and so on. Spatial isolation of social groups and the social homo-
geneity of spaces (two main dimensions of urban segregation) come both from structural forces
and cultural processes embodied in individual practices. Based on ethnographic research con-
ducted both in wealthy and deprived areas of Mexico City, this article analyzes and discusses the

1National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico

2Center for Research and Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), Mexico City, Mexico

Corresponding Author:
Maria Cristina Bayón, Institute of Social Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Circuito Mario de la
Cueva s/n, Ciudad de la Investigación en Humanidades, Mexico City 04510, Mexico.
Email: cristina.bayon@sociales.unam.mx
292 Space and Culture 21(3)

critical intervention of perceptions, meanings, and feelings in shaping urban segregation, empha-
sizing the relevance of culture in the analysis of segregation processes.
Contributions from human geography and cultural analysis, among others, help us build a
framework for understanding the symbolic and spatial dimensions shaping urban segregation.
The analysis presented here seeks to understand urban segregation as a lived and dynamic
experience in which different and contested perceptions, meanings, and feelings attached to
specific places are involved. Recently, cultural dimensions have reemerged in poverty, exclu-
sion, and inequality research. Contemporary social perspectives provide a sharper and more
heterogeneous picture on how cultural factors shape and are shaped by these social conditions.
Instead of having a culture, people exist in the midst of, respond to, use, and create cultural
symbols. Concepts such as cultural frames and repertoires, narratives, symbolic boundaries,
and cultural capital contribute to a better understanding of how people make sense of their
lives, respond to and cope with their environment (Harding, 2007; Lamont & Small, 2008;
Young, 2010).
After discussing our analytical framework, we provide a brief characterization of the urban
landscape of the city and some methodological precisions. In the following sections, we focus on
three core issues: “the sense of place” among residents of poor peripheries, the experience of
“being-in-place” or “being-out-of-place” in the city for upper and lower classes, and the process
of othering and stigmatization of disadvantaged groups in the city. While important and helpful
for describing what is going on in terms of spatial concentration of certain groups and probabili-
ties of encounters, numbers and statistics by themselves provide a limited and ambiguous under-
standing of the implications and quality of these encounters in terms of urban sociability. We
argue that a complex and relational understanding of urban segregation embrace social, cultural,
and even subjective dimensions, where social relations and interactions with others, social and
symbolic boundaries, and emotional reactions to different places shape the experience of inequal-
ity in the city.

A Framework for Understanding Urban Segregation: Inequality,

Space, and Culture
Social inequality has a spatial expression; as Bourdieu (1999) has pointed out, in a hierarchical
society, there is no space that is not hierarchized and does not express the hierarchies and social
distances of social life. In Mexico City, this relation has been explored in studies of current pro-
cesses of residential segregation (Aguilar & Mateos, 2011; Duhau, 2008; Rubalcava &
Schteingart, 2012). Most of them focus on identifying the spatial distribution patterns of specific
groups by class, ethnicity, and education, among other conditions. Several indexes and measures
of both group concentration in some areas and neighborhood social homogeneity inform us about
new trends in the process of urbanization and other related phenomena such as poverty and social
exclusion.
The social division of urban space shapes the structure of constraints and opportunities for
individuals, households, and communities. Since actors have to interact with inherited spatial
forms, objective segregation can result in even more exclusion (Cassiers & Kesteloot, 2012).
Nevertheless, these “objective” dimensions are not enough to understand the genesis and social
implications of the processes that foster spatial inequality and hierarchy. The relationship between
spatial and social distance or between social homogeneity and a particular social atmosphere, for
instance, is not a direct one. On the one hand, rich and poor may live very close to each other, but
this does not reflect by itself social integration or stronger social bonds; on the other hand, the
spatial concentration of deprivation and privilege may have both “negative” or “positive” soci-
etal and individual consequences depending on the type of norms, practices, and relationships
that define local social capital. The objective distribution of people and objects are intertwined
Bayón and Saraví 293

with the social and cultural construction of particular spaces; that is, the meanings, perceptions,
and feelings attached to spaces and their inhabitants or users.
Contributions from human geography on the relationship between space and place are central
for understanding the subjective and symbolic dimensions previously mentioned. “What begins
as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value”
(Tuan, 1977, p. 6). In other words, some portion of an abstract space becomes a place when it is
invested of some significant meanings and feelings. From a phenomenological perspective,
Relph (2008) and Tuan (1977) have emphasized human experience in this transformation of
space into place; an experience compounded of feelings and thought (and a lived body).
Even though this humanistic and phenomenological approach has been mainly interested in
the universal aspects of place as a human experience (Seamon & Sowers, 2008), its emphasis on
meaning, feelings, and values contributes to the analysis of space as a social construction. Cities,
as sites of human experience, comprise social relationships, memories, emotions, representa-
tions, and how they are negotiated on an everyday basis. “The ways in which people relate to the
world have to do with how objects provoke certain reactions that may be favorable or otherwise”
(Low, 2015, p. 298), and these reactions, far from being instinctive or innate, are social and cul-
turally driven.
In general terms, place has been associated to specific kind of experiences, characterized by a
sense of belonging, emotional attachment, and feelings of security and stability (a “field of care,”
a “home”). However, meanings and feelings attached to place can be heterogeneous and con-
tested. This aspect is missing in the phenomenological approach to place; as Cresswell (2015)
has pointed out, “while humanists claim that place is a universal experience they fail to recognize
the differences between people and their relation to place” (p. 40).
Thus, the socially constructed character of place is related to difference, inequality, and power.
As Gieryn (2000) has observed “the meaning or value of the same place is labile-flexible in the
hands of different people or cultures, malleable over time, and inevitably contested” (p. 465).
This cultural dimension of place has concrete material consequences, shaping actual behavior
and even social processes that should be better acknowledged in sociological research on urban
segregation and social fragmentation.
We argue that place construction becomes a powerful mechanism of separation, inequality and
exclusion, establishing what kind of people and practices are appropriate for different places
(Cresswell, 1996). Gieryn (2000) is clear on this: “place sustains difference and hierarchy both by
routinizing daily rounds in ways that exclude and segregate categories of people, and by embody-
ing in visible and tangible ways the cultural meanings variously ascribed to them” (p. 474).
Sometimes, exclusion operates without any apparent conflict or explicit discrimination, but
through a process of feeling comfortable or uncomfortable in different places. Urban segregation,
or the location of different groups of people in different areas of the city, results both from the
uneven distribution of opportunities and from preferences for differential association. However,
it is worth noting that both opportunities and preferences are coded by class, race, and gender,
among other categories. Places are also the focus of cultural and discursive disputes that associ-
ate them with different symbolic and representational meanings (Harvey, 1996). Some neighbor-
hoods, for instance, are perceived as “dangerous,” while others are considered as “decent.” These
attributes consolidate and legitimize a social hierarchy and a moral evaluation: “the denigration
of others’ places provides a way to assert the viability and incipient power of one’s own” (Harvey,
1996, p. 322).
Othering operates as a strategy of symbolic and moral exclusion that makes it easier for peo-
ple to blame the other for their own and society’s problems, legitimizing the privileges of the
wealthy, and the socioeconomic inequalities that underlie poverty (Lister, 2004; Pickering, 2001).
While the moral stigma of class affects the weakest groups, moral privilege is related with afflu-
ent classes (Sayer, 2005). In fact, as Link and Phelan (2001, p. 377) point out: “stigma exists
294 Space and Culture 21(3)

when elements of labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination occur together
in a power situation that allows them.”
Urban segregation is not only an issue of space, it also has to do with social and cultural pro-
cesses of place construction. This process emerges as a key dimension for better understandings
of how inequality and urban segregation are experienced, legitimized, and resisted.

The Urban Landscape of Mexico City

Mexico is a paradigmatic case in Latin America of extended deprivation and huge gaps between
the haves and have-nots. While high levels of income inequality, pervasive poverty, and segmen-
tation in access to social services have been enduring features, neoliberal restructuring has deep-
ened the old problems of social exclusion, increasing the numbers of people outside the scope of
social protection and bringing precarious employment and low wages to greater segments of the
working population. Today, 64 million people remain income-poor, representing half of the
Mexican population (CONEVAL, 2016), a proportion similar to the one prevailing in 1980. In
terms of inequality, the situation is even worse nowadays. The Gini index of income inequality is
0.48, well above the average of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) countries of 0.33; there is an almost 27-fold difference between the average incomes of
the top and the bottom deciles, which is in stark contrast with the average ratio of 9 to 1 in the
OECD countries (OECD, 2014). More worrying, the top 1% of Mexico’s distribution has an
average annual income 47 times that of the poorest 10% (Del Castillo, 2012).
These socioeconomic disparities are expressed in the morphology of the cities and embodied
in urban social life. The metropolitan area of Mexico City, with its 18 million inhabitants, is a
complex urban setting of deep contrasts, where exclusive residential areas and clubs for the
elites, luxury restaurants and shopping centers, and multinational corporations’ headquarters
coexist with large deprived peripheries, a growing informal economy, urban violence, and
degraded public spaces.
An overview of the metropolitan area (see Figure 1) shows a large area to the east, mainly the
southeast, composed of delegations and municipalities housing the most deprived sectors of the
population and where most living conditions indicators lag behind those in the rest of the city. In
contrast, the city’s northwest and center (along with some areas in the south) house the upper-
class sectors with the highest average income, education, and urban infrastructure levels of this
urban conglomerate (and the country). However, this does not translate into a polarized urban
structure, and there are some relevant nuances within this large-scale scenario. Beyond the exten-
sive areas of concentrated poverty (the east), the poor are distributed across various parts of the
city, and while the privileged classes are mostly grouped in certain residential areas (mainly in
the northwest) they show some dispersion throughout a succession of small islands.
Following Bayón and Saraví (2013), four main trends in the urbanization and segregation
processes can be observed since the early 1990s. First, the expansion and consolidation of gated
and exclusive residential communities became the most common residential strategy among
upper and upper-middle classes. While these kind of closed residential communities began to
have a significant presence by the late 1970s, this form of “insular city” became dominant among
the upper classes from the 1990s (Duhau & Giglia, 2008). The second trend refers to the expan-
sion of an increasingly distant periphery, as the result of both informal settlements, unregulated
lot acquisition, traditional processes of self-built housing, and new social housing complexes for
low-income sectors, intensely promoted by the state since the 1990s but under the direction of
private real state companies. The third trend refers the weakening of public space, understood as
a space of encounter between the “different,” which has been driven mainly by urban violence,
insecurity, and a growing sense of fear. Gated communities, corporate, and commercial centers
have privatized the public space for the elites, contributing to the fragmentation of the city. The
Bayón and Saraví 295

Figure 1. Poverty by municipality: Mexico City metropolitan area, 2010.

Note. Poverty refers to the population with incomes below the poverty line, in Mexico, called “welfare line” which
is the total value of the food and nonfood basic basket per person per month. Legend: Mexico City: 1. Alvaro
Obregón, 2. Azcapotzalco, 3. Benito Juárez, 4. Coyoacán, 5. Cuajimalpa, 6. Cuauhtémoc, 7. Gustavo A. Madero,
8. Iztacalco, 9. Iztapalapa, 10. Magdalena Contreras, 11. Miguel Hidalgo, 12. Milpa Alta, 13. Tláhuac, 14. Tlalpan, 15.
Venustiano Carranza, 16. Xochimilco, Estado de México: 17. Acolman, 18. Atenco, 19. Atizapán de Zaragoza, 20.
Chalco, 21. Chicoloapan, 22. Chimalhuacán, 23. Coacalco de Berriozábal, 24. Coyotepec, 25. Cuautitlán, 26. Cuautitlán
Izcalli, 27. Ecatepec de Morelos, 28. Huixquilucan, 29. Ixtapaluca, 30. Jaltenco, 31. La Paz, 32. Melchor Ocampo,
33. Naucalpan de Juárez, 34. Nezahualcóyotl, 35. Nicolás Romero, 36. Tecámac, 37. Teoloyucán, 38. Tepotzotlán,
39. Texcoco, 40. Tlalnepantla de Baz, 41. Tultepec, 42. Tultitlán, 43. Valle de Chalco Solidaridad, 44. Zumpango, 45.
Nextlalpan, 46. Tonanitla.
Source: Authors, with the technical support of AntropoSig (AntropoSig is CIESAS’s laboratory of geographical
information).
296 Space and Culture 21(3)

fourth trend to be highlighted relates to the reduction of the scale of segregation, which means
that, in some areas of the city, the physical distance between the rich and the poor diminishes, and
the possibility of encounters increase. However, as Bourdieu (1999) states, spatial proximity of
actors which are wide apart in the social space translates into a lack of social proximity, manifest
as physical barriers as well as symbolic boundaries between the privileged and the rest.

Methodology
This article is the result of collaboration between coauthors who conducted two individual
research projects, based on ethnographic fieldwork. While both projects were designed and con-
ducted separately, between 2008 and 2013, they share a common interest on the centrality of the
spatial dimension for the understanding of poverty and social inequality. The analysis we present
here draws on interviews, focus groups, and observation coming from both researches.
In the first study, fieldwork was carried out in Chimalhuacán, one of the poorest districts in the
Eastern periphery of the city. In this locality, 36 semistructured in-depth interviews were con-
ducted, 31 with residents and 5 with local actors (school and community center directors). Topics
explored in the interviews with residents focused both on biographical experiences (family of
origin, education, work, residential, and migration trajectories) and perceptions (on the neighbor-
hood, work and education, representations of poverty and inequality, discontents and future
expectations, among others). Interviews with local actors explored their perceptions on the local
area, changes experienced during the past years as well as place images from outsiders, to con-
trast them with residents’ perceptions and experiences.
Fieldwork for the second study was conducted in four different universities where students
were interviewed. Two of these are public universities located in the Eastern periphery of Mexico
City and the remaining two are private and located in the more exclusive Northwestern area.
Location and class were the main reasons to select them. Two focus groups and 27 individual
interviews with students were conducted; in total, 39 male and female young people from popu-
lar and privileged classes were involved in this research. The interviews were based on a semis-
tructured guide, with open questions about the experiences and meanings of inequality in three
different spheres: education, consumption, and the urban space.
All interviews (63 in total) were semistructured, fully transcribed, and then coded and ana-
lyzed with NVivo, a software for qualitative research; the same procedure was followed with the
focus groups. Both samples were theoretically constructed, and contacts with the interviewees
were developed through a snowball technique. All participants were previously unknown by
researchers. Interviews were complemented with observations, fieldwork notes, and informal
talks with key actors in the universities and communities. All the names of the interviewees
quoted below are fictitious in order to preserve their anonymity, and the quotations are our trans-
lation from Spanish to English.
Both studies privileged narratives, unveiling how individuals see themselves in relation to
others and give meaning to their experiences, constraints, and opportunities. In fact, narrative is
grounded in qualitative traditions focused on the lived experiences of individuals and constructed
social realities; individuals construct their own narratives according to their interpretation in
sociocultural contexts (Roberts, 2002). By bringing together narratives on common topics and
sharing a common analytical framework, we sought to control the potential limitations coming
from presenting findings from two individual projects.

The Sense of Place in the Margins

Billig (2005) suggests that a sense of place is affected “by perceptions of its physical character-
istics, by the feeling and behavior of its residents, and by the interactions between them”
Bayón and Saraví 297

(p. 118). Focusing on these three dimensions, this section explores the sense of place among resi-
dents of deprived areas in Mexico City. Their experiences of living in the margins are embedded
in and molded by this sense of place.
Perceptions and levels of (dis)satisfaction with services are related, among other factors, with
expectations of their provision and quality, and shaped by experiences and representations of the
city. In deprived peripheral areas, the housing trajectories of residents interviewed have mostly
developed in the East side of the city, where urban infrastructure and services available are more
precarious (in terms of availability, accessibility, and quality) than in Central and residential
areas inhabited by higher income sectors. Thus, urban experiences have basically taken place in
the periphery, which becomes the referent of “urban normality.” Most dwellers have experienced
intraurban migration between poor areas of the city. Living on the margins is experienced as a
lack of options resulting from distance from the city.

Well, right now this area looks very ugly because there is plenty of dust, there are no sidewalks, the
power supply is really bad, there are no recreational parks, there is no supermarket nearby . . . what
else can I say? Unsafe . . . yes, it can perhaps be a bit unsafe . . . but . . . given what there is, what can
we expect? (Esther, personal communication, May 2008)

While the “Distrito” (in reference to the Federal District) emerges in the narratives as the “real
city”—with more and better hospitals, schools, and urban infrastructure—the “Estado” (in refer-
ence to the State of Mexico, that is, the edges of the city) refers to distant metropolitan areas
experienced as a “second class city”—with bad schools and hospitals, lack of paving and street
lighting, dust and rubbish on the streets. The “Distrito” is associated with proximity to the Center,
where everything is better and more civilized, a different life, and people do not get their shoes
dirty with dust. In contrast, their own place of residence is far, with too much dust, lacks many
things, and looks very ugly. This negative image of their own place of residence seems to be natu-
ralized as the “place of the poor” (Bayón, 2012); they live where they can, not where they choose.
The experience of place in areas of concentrated poverty not only refers to the immediate local
area but to the way(s) the whole city is lived and signified. Here, the urban experience is one of
living away from the (real) city, where everything is perceived as better. Even colors seem to be
different. Comparing some residential areas of Mexico City and the periphery of Iztapalapa
where he lives, Sebastián asserts:

Of course, the landscape there and here is so different, the urban aspect is quite different: here you
see everything grey; I don’t like to live here, you come from the colorful city and go to the grey, but
then I close in my bedroom and I feel better. (Sebastián, personal communication, April 2010)

Remoteness in relegated peripheries is not only experienced as distance and long commuting
hours; it is also dusty shoes, garbage piled up everywhere; absence of trees, green spaces, public
parks, squares, and recreational facilities. Current dwellers do not compare their neighborhood’s
conditions with rural communities as past migrants may have done, but with the central areas of
the same city. While poor neighborhoods used to be the locus of an emerging citizenship, nowa-
days, they have become the spatial marker of a second-class citizenship.
While narratives tend to highlight negative aspects of the neighborhood, they also introduce
nuances and contradictions that could be expressing resistances from below. Territorial stigmas
are not only internalized and reproduced by their own victims but also confronted by them.
According to Lamont and Mizrachi (2012), responses to stigmatization are the rhetorical and
strategic tools deployed by individual members of stigmatized groups in reaction to perceived
stigmatization, racism, and discrimination. Inés, a young single mother who lives in Iztapalapa,
a consolidated but stigmatized area in the Eastern periphery, says, “it is known as the worst in the
city, but people talk without knowing . . . they don’t know how is to live here.”
298 Space and Culture 21(3)

How is living here? It is quiet . . . I mean, according to the news . . . here people kill people, that
someone killed this guy and . . . it could be [the] truth but it is not always. You know, every month,
every two months someone is killed, but not always. It is a peaceful place, I mean . . . maybe because
they [the bad guys of the neighborhood] know us, because we live in the neighborhood, but they
don’t do anything against us. (Inés, personal communication, May 2008)

Both crime and peace coexist as perceived attributes of the same place. On the one hand, the
emphasis on the peaceful atmosphere pointed out by Inés, is both a way to respond to stigma and
build place identity. Crime is just one aspect of everyday life. In fact, as her experience clearly
shows, the feeling of insecurity is socially mediated, contextually shaped, and responds to a com-
plex combination of factors not limited to the occurrence of crimes. If you know your neighbors
(and they know you) and belong to this place, violence does not necessary means insecurity.
Nonetheless, insecurity is perceived as one of the main problems of the neighborhood, and a
major change experienced in recent years. Residents mostly explain insecurity as the result of
population growth experienced during the past decades and the “kind” of people recently settled
in the area. Those recently arrived are perceived as people of lower status, coming from the out-
side: “criminals, vandals, those who are unwanted in the District.” Between one group and the
other, there are no important differences in housing conditions, economic situation, or jobs; we
are talking about homogeneously poor communities. Moreover, most residents have previously
lived in the same localities in the East side where, according to them, most of the newcomers
come from.

Well, you know, in fact insecurity is growing up, and the streets here in the neighborhood are
becoming more and more violent [ . . . ] I think the reason is that new people from different places is
coming; bad people are coming and they bring with them a lot of bad habits in a neighborhood where
. . . you know, public security is just a myth. The insecurity comes from the police, and now criminals
do their contribution. (Francisco, personal communication, February 2008)

Isolation and exclusion in these contexts acquire specific meanings: neither the absence of
relations nor being out of society. On one side, isolation does not imply lack of interaction with
neighbors, but distrust. The neighbor is not perceived as someone who I can trust my house or
my children in an emergency situation, but as someone who might rob my home when I leave.
According to Fernando:

That type of communication does not exist anymore. Here there is no communication between
neighbors; everyone is in his own world, locked in his house; if I go out, when I come back it is empty
. . . and the thieves could be my neighbors. (Fernando, personal communication, May 2008)

This new feature of the daily life of deprived areas, specifically the lack of trust among neigh-
bors, erodes social ties and collective action. While “objective” violence and crime (mostly asso-
ciated with drug trafficking) contributes to weakened local social capital, distrust is also a
consequence of the increasing stigmatization of poverty, and the internalization of stigmas by the
poor and their own communities.
On the other side, exclusion does not mean being out of society but being in in unfavorable
terms; a kind of “exclusionary integration” (Bayón, 2015). Despite some negative perceptions
and feelings about their neighborhood, dwellers need to build some kind of place identity, a sense
of belonging. Toño is 19 years old and complained about violence, drug consumption and traf-
ficking, crime and police corruption in his neighborhood, located in Iztapalapa; he also told us
about his own involvement in some of these activities and their negative consequences in his life
history. However, when asked about his colonia, he expresses a strong sense of belonging and
place identity:
Bayón and Saraví 299

You know, I like everything, everything of my neighborhood, because I was born here. Sometimes I
go with my friends to other areas of the city and I don’t like them, I don’t feel good. I don´t know
exactly why, but I like my neighborhood. (Toño, personal communication, March 2008)

While, the others are at times their own neighbors, the sense of place belonging is precisely
based on knowing the neighbors and getting them to know you. Thus, place images are ambiva-
lent and apparently conflicting, such as perceiving the local space as “insecure, but quiet.” Stories
revealing negative views on the neighborhood usually are accompanied by more nuanced visions
naturalizing disadvantages, which allows residents to build identity and a sense of place
belonging.

Being-In-Place and Being-Out-of-Place in the City

The distinction between “being-in-place” and “being-out-of-place” (Cresswell, 1996) is particu-
larly relevant for understanding how people coming from different social backgrounds experi-
ence the city. From early in life, individuals construct their own urban geography. Biographical
characteristics and personal experiences are important in this process, but race, gender, or class
make considerable differences in how people map out the city, identify places, and learn to move,
use, and be in them.
In Mexico City, socioeconomic urban segregation means that lower and upper social classes
have their own city-within-the-city, even when they live very close each other. Both cities repre-
sent distant and contrasting social and cultural worlds where urban experience takes place. Social
distancing, as well as inclusion or exclusion from different urban spaces, also operates through
subtle and consolidated cultural repertoires, according to which some places become appropriate
to some kind of people and inappropriate or forbidden to others.
These cultural repertoires frame the experiences of Valentina and Paola, when, under different
circumstances and coming from different social backgrounds, they have been in a spatial context
considered inappropriate for their respective class conditions. Valentina, a 21-year-old student, attends
an exclusive private university in Mexico City and, as usual among Mexican privileged classes, she
neither uses public transport nor walk in public spaces. She lives in a gated community and drives her
own SUV. During the interview, she talked about her feelings and reactions outside those spaces.

Yes, of course, you move and live more and more in restricted areas, in a small area with the same
people that you live with everyday. This is true, if I go to a street market, for instance, of course I will
feel uncomfortable! And of course I will be sexually harassed by men. . . . You know, when I walk in
the street, even here, in Santa Fe, and I pass by a building in construction, workers catcall me.
Yesterday, here in Santa Fe, I went to a restaurant, walking, because it was few blocks from here and
. . . There was a group of construction workers and . . . of course, they told me a lot of things and I
felt really uncomfortable. (Valentina, personal communication, October 2009)

On the other hand, Paola comes from a working-class background, lives in the Eastern periph-
ery of the city, and, like most residents from low-income sectors in Mexico, daily expends many
hours in public transport, has lunch and buys clothes in informal street markets, and on weekends
goes downtown. She also talked about those places in which she feels (un)comfortable, showing
contrast between urban experience and sense of place.

Usually I go to downtown and normally you find there just people from your same (socioeconomic)
level. A couple days ago, a friend of mine took me to a shopping center, Galerías, and there . . . yes, of
course, there were a lot of people with higher level. It seemed to me people with more money; I was
with my pants and my sneakers, as always, and people were looking at me . . . I feel better in downtown
than in these kind of shopping centers, I feel weird there. (Paola, personal interview, May 2010)
300 Space and Culture 21(3)

Both accounts make apparent the tension between some places (the street market and the
shopping mall) and their respective spatial habitus. The interviewees feel uncomfortable, and a
stranger when out of the consuming places where they were socialized. Expected behaviors do
not correspond with their spatial habitus; these behaviorial expectations relate a position in a
social structure to actions in space (Cresswell, 1996). Valentina and Paola are unable to “read”
these places in order to move naturally in them. While in this case, there is no explicit and con-
scious practice of rejection or exclusion, the result is a spontaneous process of social distancing
and social homogeneity. The naturalized sense of being-in-place or out-of-place reproduces both
the structure and experience of social inequality and urban segregation.
People from different social backgrounds are also kept in their own places by explicit practices
when they cross this geographical (also symbolic and sociocultural) boundary. Cresswell (1996)
refers to it as a transgression: when something or someone has been judged to be “out-of-place,” they
have committed a transgression of the “normal” spatial order. People could feel uncomfortable when
in the wrong place, as Valentina and Paola describe, and therefore “naturally” avoid those places by
themselves. A transgression, however, is associated to an explicit reaction of rejection or exclusion
in the context of a power relation. When Rafa and two friends from a poor neighborhood visited a
sports store located in an upper-middle class shopping center they crossed the line. The employees
and security guards respond to this transgression by showing them that they were out-of-place:

They looked us up and down with mistrust . . . followed us all the time, as if we were going to steal
something . . . “What’s up, why I can’t go there just to buy or see something?” They categorized you,
they are saying: “this fucking guy will steal something.” (Rafa, personal communication, May 2010)

Rafa and his friends were judged as intruders in a place they do not belong, polluting a
socially homogenous space; the security guards’ reaction attempted to keep those social boundar-
ies. By no means this kind of situation is exclusive to Latin American cities. In fact, in a recent
article published by The Guardian, Kerridge (2017) clearly illustrates different situations of hos-
tility in public places against people from poorer backgrounds in Paris and London, highlighting
how unspoken social codes can make place hostile for anyone who does not seem “to fit in.” The
social and cultural construction of place is a contested arena where the distinction between us and
them (those who belong and do not belong to that place) legitimizes exclusion and inequality.

Legitimizing Urban Inequality: Othering, Stigma, and Power

In Mexico City, social interaction between the privileged and lower classes is unusual, weak, and
controlled, avoiding—whenever is possible—any encounter with the other in public spaces
(Bayón & Saraví, 2013; Duhau & Giglia, 2008). As in most Latin American metropolises, urban
sociability is governed by mistrust, stigmatization, and fear, urban crime and “securitization,”
and the growing closure of the privileged sectors parallel the isolation of the poorest. However,
the upper classes still depend on this excluded part of the population for taking care of everyday
tasks that they cannot or will not do themselves. Moreover, as the scale of urban segregation
becomes more compressed, casual encounters and interactions between upper and lower classes
are potentially more frequent and unavoidable.
Approaching or distancing practices toward others, as well as the norms and codes of interac-
tion during casual or more formal encounters, are based on symbolic boundaries and cultural
repertoires. Class and territorial stigmas are powerful tools of othering and devaluation of some
people and places, and they have a direct effect on urban sociability. Othering as well as stigma
are relational and context dependent. In fact, stigma does not reside in the individual person,
representing a devaluated identity in a particular social context; the stigmatized subject only is
such to the eyes of others (Goffman, 1986).
Bayón and Saraví 301

Representations of the most disadvantaged sectors tend to be spatialized. Negative valuations

are often translated into a pathologization of their spaces (neighborhoods, schools, streets, etc.)
resulting in place images that associate types of places and types of people living there (Reay,
2004; Watt, 2006). Territorial stigmas are a fundamental component of the subjective experience
of people living in deprived areas, showing the conjunction of disadvantage in the social and
physical space. This overlap becomes apparent in Javier´s account of place images of the upper
classes about his neighborhood, located in the Eastern periphery.

Someone from Polanco [a high-income neighborhood], to begin with . . . will simply say [about my
neighborhood]: only bums, thieves, low-lives or whatever you want. By the ways of . . . not having
all houses in the same shape, no one . . . it’s not clean here, let’s say, there are still garbage dumps or
. . . the streets are dirty [ . . . ] they would think we’re thieves . . . well, yeah, the way of dressing or
walking, you know, the rich are always more polished, better dressed and all that . . . I mean, many
things are different between a rich and a poor. (Javier, personal communication, March 2008)

The exaggerated emphasis on crime and violence with which the media present disadvantaged
neighborhoods in urban peripheries builds an image universally negative and stigmatizing, exac-
erbating the fears of privileged sectors (Gilbert, 2007). As previously observed, stigma is built by
merging and confusing the conditions of housing and the place, with the people living in them.
Talking about his job-hunt experience, Brian told us that

[people] discriminate against you for everything . . . for the way you speak, the place you live in, for
everything . . . I just said “I’m from San Marcos,” and that was enough, when they heard that, they
told me “oh, no, we can’t give you the job . . . how many tricks you bring with you!!!” (Brian,
personal communication, May 2010)

While poverty has an undeniable material and structural basis, it is also socially constructed,
involving symbolic and relational dimensions contributing to create, maintain, and reproduce it.
Moreover, there are markers that operate as symbolic boundaries between different types of poor,
reinforcing the process of othering. In the social imaginary of Mexico City upper-middle classes,
at least two different types of poor are distinguished: the urban and the rural poor, and among the
latter, the indigenous population. Each type results on different expectations, reactions, and forms
of interaction with them. Sofía, an upper-class student, is clear about this:

I think there is a segment of the lower class that scares you, their context is frightening. I don’t know
exactly how to call them, but they are like “slums,” with very precarious houses . . . they are in
Iztapalapa . . . in those areas. They are different to the indigenous children, the indigenous
communities, they are really very poor, but you want to help them, to do something for them. (Sofía,
personal communication, September 2009)

Most of these perceptions are feed by indirect references, particularly images and prejudices
coming from mass media and the public discourse on poverty. The distinction between the poor
in terms of their deservedness/undeservedness, with different “moral” qualities, affects and
shapes urban sociability and social practices. While the urban poor are criminalized, becoming
subjects of fear, the indigenous-rural poor are seen as passive victims, becoming subject of char-
ity and compassion.
The criminalizing stigmatization of poverty in these areas often falls on young people. Being
young and living in poor neighborhoods, particularly in the East side of the city, means being
labelled “dangerous,” “violent,” “lazy,” “thief,” or “drug addict” (Saraví, 2009); disadvantaged
young people are feared and rejected in their interactions with others, and controlled by the state
in some public spaces.
302 Space and Culture 21(3)

Everything is your appearance, it happened to me: if you are hanging out on the streets and a cop sees
you pandrosón (badly dressed), you will be stopped and searched, but a well-dressed guy will not
have any problem. (Santiago, personal communication, October 2011)

While people from upper classes can also be the target of stereotyping and discrimination in
some places and contexts—by their way of dressing, talking, acting, or place of residence—it is
worth noting that the effects of stigmatization are not neutral and equally distributed between the
have and have-nots. People who stigmatize have the power to ensure that the culture recognizes
and deeply accepts the stereotypes they apply (Link & Phelan, 2001). It is precisely the access to
resources of power that allows disapproval, exclusion, and discrimination to materialize; the
stigmatization of the poor is indissolubly linked to inequality, contributing to its acceptance and
legitimization, with strongly negative effects on the stigmatized subjects.

Conclusions
As our analysis suggests, place is central for a sociological understanding of urban segregation;
sociocultural dimensions and power relations involved in place construction affect urban experi-
ence and sociability. The sense of place developed in the peripheries, the feelings of belonging to
some places and the rejection from others, and the stigmatization of places and their inhabitants
or users, gave us a more complex understanding of urban segregation in Mexico City. From this
perspective, urban segregation emerges as a lived and dynamic experience in which different and
contested perceptions, meanings, and feelings attached to specific places are involved.
The concentration and homogeneity of poverty in deprived peripheries is a long-standing
feature of Latin American cities, but its integrative capacity within urban life has been eroded in
recent decades, transforming the sense of place developed by inhabitants. Territorial concentra-
tion of the poor in the outskirts was in the past a significant social engine of urban social move-
ments, popular demands for services and infrastructure, local solidarity, and social capital
(Roberts, 1995). During the urbanization process, in the 1960s and 1970s, poor neighborhoods
were characterized by a strong sense of belonging and communitarian life. Our findings evidence
important changes that provide a different and less optimistic picture today.
Negative place images dominate the narratives of the poor about their neighborhoods.
Nowadays, most residents in urban peripheries are not rural migrants as in the past; they come
from urban backgrounds, with intrametropolitan migration experiences, pushed by the increasing
of land prices in central and more consolidated areas. Urban peripheries, once experienced as a
space of opportunity for rural migrants, have become a naturalized second-class city for the poor.
These negative images of deprived areas are extended to their neighbors, in a process of self-
contempt and internalization of poverty stigmatization. Violence, insecurity, and mistrust domi-
nate the local atmosphere and the interaction between them. The moral and social devaluation of
the poor hinder the possibilities of building community ties and solidarity among neighbors; an
internal process of othering undermines a common identity and the possibilities of collective
actions. Fear and isolation weaken solidarity and reciprocity, becoming a new source of disad-
vantage in poor neighborhoods.
Perceptions and feelings of devaluation and insecurity coexist, however, with a relative sense
of belonging. This is not a contradiction, but a tension in the subjective experience of contem-
porary urban poverty, particularly among youth and women. Peripheries are characterized by
negative feelings and perceptions but, at the same time, recognized as places of belonging.
Young men, for instance, feel strangers, rejected, and out-of-place outside their own neighbor-
hoods where, at the same time, they are vulnerable to numerous risks and disadvantages. For
them, urban segregation can be thought as the development of a sense of belonging in spaces of
exclusion.
Bayón and Saraví 303

The criminalization and moral condemnation of the poor have implications beyond their
spaces; they shape urban sociability and the experience of the city. Middle and upper-middle
classes avoid stigmatized areas; some also avoid public spaces and reject places of interaction
with strangers. But, simultaneously, they feel themselves excluded, expelled, and threatened in
some areas of the city. Upper-middle classes have lost a sense of belonging to the city. Their
places of belonging are private or semipublic. These upper-middle social classes have a disem-
bedded experience of the local city (Rodgers, 2004).
Poor and rich, privileged and unprivileged, reject and distance each other, developing con-
trasting senses of belonging. They feel uncomfortable and weird in the wrong city producing a
naturalised process of self-exclusion and social distancing. When a transgression occurs, they
are directly rejected or expelled from some places. Being-in-place and being-out-of-place are
part of a growing process of naturalization of urban inequality. Different social classes may live
closer, share some specific areas of the city (such as downtown), or have some casual encounters
in public spaces, but at the same time, social and cultural boundaries create an “empathy gulf”
between them (Shapiro, 2002). Places, urban experiences, and lifestyles of the haves and have-
nots run in such different and distant ways that inequalities become legitimized and naturalized.
Urban segregation is not just a problem of the distribution of people and/or things over an
abstract physical space. Processes of urban inequality cannot be split from the social and cultural
dimensions embedded in the space. Perceptions, meanings, and feelings shape urban sociability;
the use of space and the construction of places redefine the implications of being close or distant,
concentrated or dispersed just in physical terms.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Author Biographies
María Cristina Bayón is a researcher at the Institute of Social Research, National Autonomous University
of Mexico, with an interest in topics related to the sociology of poverty and inequality; spatial segregation,
fragmentation and urban sociability in Latin America.
Gonzalo A. Saraví is a researcher at the Center for Research and Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology
(CIESAS–Mexico). His main areas of interest are youth studies, inequality and social exclusion, and urban
studies in Latin America.