Made in Tepito: Urban Tourism and Inequality in Mexico City Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München vorgelegt von Barbara Vodopivec aus Slowenien 2017 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Eveline Dürr Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Martin Sökefeld Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 09.11.2017 For the people of Tepito, for their kindness and support Acknowledgments This thesis would not have been possible without the collaboration and support from the people I met in Mexico, especially in Tepito. I am truly honoured that so many of them took their time to talk to me, entrusting me with their ideas, perspectives and life stories. I have learned a great deal from our encounters – not merely in terms of academic knowledge but also in terms of personal ideas and world views. Since I have decided to use pseudonyms for my interlocutors in the thesis, I would like to express here my gratitude to the following people who greatly facilitated my stay in Tepito: Alfonso Hernández Hernández, Luis Arévalo Venegas, Veronica Matilde Hernández Hernández, Jacobo Noe Loeza Amaro, Marina Beltran, Jose Luis Rubio, Lourdes Ruíz, Mayra Valenzuela Rojas, Enriqueta Romero, Diego Sebastián Cornejo, David Rivera, Gabriel Sanchez Valverde, Eduardo Vásquez Uribe, Fernando César Ramírez, Everardo Pillado, Ariel Torres Ramirez, Oscar Delgado Olvera, Robert Galicia, Marcela Silvia Hernández Cortés, Maria Rosa Rangel, Gilberto Bueno, Lourdes Arévalo Anaya, Leticia Ponce, Salvador Gallardo, Mario Puga, Poncho Hernández Gómez, Julio César Laureani, Paulina Hernández y Marco Velasco. There are many other people I met in Mexico City who in one way or another helped me with my research and my orientation in this gigantic city, either with contacts, ideas or interesting conversations. I would like to mention few of them: Mojdeh Hojjadi, Gabriel Barajas, Paola Rivera, Guillermo Bautista, Laura Lee Roush, Malgorzata Polanska and Beatriz Ramírez González. I would further like to thank my thesis supervisor Prof. Dr. Eveline Dürr for providing me with the opportunity to work on this exciting project and for guiding me through the research process. I would also like to express my gratitude to the rest of the research group: Prof. Dr. Gareth Jones, Dr. Alessandro Angelini and especially Prof. Dr. Rivke Jaffe, who took time to read parts of my thesis and inspiring me with her comments in the process. I am particularly grateful to my colleague Alana Osbourne, also a member of the research project, not only for her effort to read my texts, to discuss my work and to correct my written English but also for her encouragement, emotional support and lots of fun moments during and after fieldwork and workshops. I am also very happy to have met Sarah Becklake and David Frohnapfel, adjoined members to the research team, who took time to comment my writing, debate the research topic and who inspired me to also have fun during the research process. I would like to thank my sister Nina, who is well aware of the challenges that emerge when writing a doctoral thesis. Being anthropologist herself, she vigorously read tons of my drafts, provided me with insightful comments and engaged with me in broader anthropological debates. I would also like to thank my parents for encouraging me to finish the thesis even thought this sometimes felt impossible. Last and not least, I am very grateful to my husband Boris for his endless emotional support and for taking care so well of the household during this long doctoral process. This thesis was made under the research project Slum Tourism in the Americas: Commodifying Urban Poverty and Violence which was financially supported by Open Research Area, DFG, ESRC and NWO. Contents Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................................ 1 List of figures ......................................................................................................................................... 2 1. Introduction: From marginalized places to tourist spaces ............................................................ 3 ‘Slums’ and place-making: negotiating inequality and place in the world ......................................... 9 From place-making to place-branding: Urban development and symbolic economy ...................... 13 Slum tourism: Commodifying urban inequality ............................................................................... 19 Structure of the thesis ........................................................................................................................ 24 2. Sensing Tepito: Research methods and the ethnographic encounter ......................................... 26 Walking, not just talking ................................................................................................................... 26 Encounter with Mexico City: Living in the urban jungle ................................................................. 29 Going to Tepito: From tourists to researchers .................................................................................. 32 Multiple roles in the ethnographic encounter................................................................................ 32 Hanging out: Beyond the tourist encounter .................................................................................. 34 Negotiating relations in the ethnographic encounter ........................................................................ 37 Writing ethnography ......................................................................................................................... 40 3. Locating the barrio bravo ................................................................................................................ 43 Mexico City, the urban jungle........................................................................................................... 43 Tepito in Mexico City ....................................................................................................................... 44 Beautified centre, informal Tepito ................................................................................................ 44 Safe city, violent barrio ................................................................................................................. 49 Tepito around the world: Images that travel .................................................................................... 51 Reading, watching and gossiping.................................................................................................. 51 Virtual Tepito ................................................................................................................................ 54 Representing Tepito from Tepito ...................................................................................................... 56 Touring Tepito .................................................................................................................................. 60 4. Resistance made in Tepito .............................................................................................................. 64 El Chapo comes to Town .................................................................................................................. 64 Being left to your own destiny .......................................................................................................... 67 Identity of resistance: We are survivors ............................................................................................ 72 The role of informal spaces ............................................................................................................... 75 Touring informal Tepito ................................................................................................................... 79 From stigma to brand ........................................................................................................................ 86 Made in Tepito: (Re)branding informality ........................................................................................ 88 5. Being part of cosmopolitan Mexico City ....................................................................................... 92 James Bond flies over Zócalo ........................................................................................................... 92 Mobility across transnational borders ............................................................................................... 95 Mobility gap in a fragmented city ..................................................................................................... 98 Participating in the global world ..................................................................................................... 101 On the path of the worldly Tepito ................................................................................................... 105 Made in Tepito: A cosmopolitan brand .......................................................................................... 109 Negotiating urban imaginaries and mobility gaps .......................................................................... 112 6. Tepito brand and the (in)visibility of violence(s) ....................................................................... 116 Representing violence(s) ................................................................................................................