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Narrating Change: urban transformations in the Roma-Condesa, Mexico City
(pp. 110-121; DOI: 10.23692/iMex.22.9)

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María Moreno Carranco

María Moreno Carranco holds a PhD in Architecture from UC Berkeley; she is a professor at the Department of Social Sciences at UAM-Cuajimalpa, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in urban studies. Her recent publications include a coedited book called Spaces of Fear: bodies, walls, cities (2021) that was motivated by an interest in exploring the ways in which emotions and the materiality of the built environment intersect and transform each other. She also coauthored a book with sociologist Rocio Guadarrama called Mundos Habitados: espacios de arquitectura, diseño y música (2020) which departs from established frameworks for studying the creative city, proposing a more situated analysis that considers urban history, the particularities of the place, and the role of everyday practices in urban life.

This paper focuses on innovative ways of producing urban history. I seek to explore how places, objects, and environments are constructed subjectively and how this subjectivity is cut across by affective relations. Looking to advance the idea of Mexico City as a discrepant city to common frames of reference such as the global city or the megacity models. This work examines the correlation between the urban and material world and the affective dynamics produced by it. This is done by analyzing four spaces –a park, an empty plot of land, an ice cream store, and a fashion boutique– in the Roma-Condesa area in Mexico City in connection to three affective relations: charm, fear, and melancholy.

Este artículo se centra en formas innovadoras de producir historia urbana. Trata de explorar cómo los lugares, los objetos y los entornos se construyen subjetivamente y cómo esta subjetividad es atravesada por relaciones afectivas. Buscando avanzar la idea de la Ciudad de México como ciudad discrepante a marcos de referencia comunes como son el de ciudad global o el de megaciudad. Este trabajo examina la correlación entre el mundo urbano y el material y las dinámicas afectivas que ambos producen. A partir del análisis de cuatro espacios –un parque, un terreno baldío, una heladería y una boutique de moda– en la zona Roma-Condesa de la Ciudad de México en conexión con tres relaciones afectivas: encanto, miedo y melancolía.