000012773 001__ 12773
000012773 005__ 20240715104351.0
000012773 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.6082/uchicago.12773
000012773 037__ $$aTHESIS
000012773 037__ $$bDissertation
000012773 041__ $$aspa
000012773 245__ $$aEl espacio de lo posible: la Ciudad de México en la imaginación cultural (1997-2018)
000012773 260__ $$bUniversity of Chicago
000012773 269__ $$a2024-08
000012773 336__ $$aDissertation
000012773 502__ $$bPh.D.
000012773 520__ $$a&lt;p&gt;In 1997 Mexico City held its first democratic mayoral election. From the outset, the victorious left-wing administration championed the idea that the capital was now a new space, distinct from its immediate, ruinous past. By the close of the 20th century, Mexico City was widely regarded as a catastrophe—politically, demographically, ecologically. From the social sciences to city chroniclers, from fiction to poetry to news reports, many viewed the city as teetering on the brink of apocalypse, decisive and symbolically pushed to the edge by the devastating 1985 earthquake. The “democratic transition” promised a new path for the capital, an orientation toward the future.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The country at large “transitioned” too, albeit in a different direction. In 2000, the right-wing Partido Acción Nacional beat the longstanding Partido de la Revolución Institucional, which had held the presidency continuously since 1929. Between 1997 and 2018, the leftist capital became the primary opposition platform in Mexican electoral politics. Hence the need to highlight a series of perceived contrasts: the progressive capital against the conservative nation; the cosmopolitan vis à vis the provincial; the metropolitan safe-haven versus the narco-criminal hinterland. This dichotomy, which complemented the old/new city dispute, operated too in the cultural realm.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;My dissertation demonstrates how this straightforward, yet highly symbolic political narrative held great purchase over the production and reception of contemporary cultural works prominently featuring Mexico City. What I illustrate is a decisive shift in the sense-making of the city. Some key and immensely popular cultural products were now either conceived or interpreted from a standpoint of urban pride, rather than condemnation. A new space of possibles—as cultural sociology refers to a historically defined set of reasonable, acceptable, or imaginable cultural codes—opened for Mexico City during those two decades. By examining both the formal aspects of these works, and the affective sphere of their reception, I argue that politics and culture worked hand in hand (sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently) in pushing the space of possibles, re-enchanting a formerly toxic space while simultaneously opposing a toxic national image.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Drawing from the theoretical writings of Raymond Williams, Fredric Jameson, Rita Felski, Pierre Bourdieu, Franco Moretti, George Yúdice, and others, I engage with Spencer Tunick’s mass-nudity installation in the Zócalo (2007), Santiago Arau’s drone photographs of the capital (2015-2018), the relation between tourism and Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives (1998), as well as Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018) and the politics of “authenticity.” In tracing the connections, affordances, and uses of these works, a fuller picture emerges of a cultural transformation prompted by both the economic turn to neoliberalism and the political turn to electoral democracy. Concurrently, examining the capital’s history from 1997 to 2018 can help us better understand the national "transformation" promoted by the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional since 2018, which continues the legacy of the leftist administrations in Mexico City. Two former mayors have been elected president in consecutive terms (2018 and 2024). For twenty years, the city was the left’s laboratory.&lt;/p&gt;
000012773 540__ $$a© 2024 Luis Madrigal
000012773 542__ $$fCC BY-NC-ND
000012773 6531_ $$aMexico City
000012773 6531_ $$aLiterary Geography
000012773 6531_ $$aSpatial Studies
000012773 6531_ $$aCultural Sociology
000012773 6531_ $$aMexico History 21st Century
000012773 6531_ $$aContemporary Mexico
000012773 690__ $$aHumanities Division
000012773 691__ $$aRomance Languages and Literatures
000012773 7001_ $$aMadrigal Perez, Luis Alberto$$uUniversity of Chicago
000012773 72012 $$aMauricio Tenorio-Trillo
000012773 72014 $$aAgnes Lugo-Ortiz
000012773 72014 $$aRafael Lemus
000012773 72014 $$aSergio Delgado-Moya
000012773 8564_ $$yDissertation$$9bc9c9063-ac98-40eb-83b1-42a02ec07b16$$s23803855$$uhttps://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/12773/files/Diss_Madrigal.pdf$$eEmbargo (2026-08-17)
000012773 8564_ $$yApproval Form$$98592d748-6a00-46cf-aecf-57508b212f3d$$s70686$$uhttps://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/12773/files/Madrigal%20Departmental%20Approval%20Form.pdf$$erestricted_admin
000012773 908__ $$aI agree
000012773 909CO $$ooai:uchicago.tind.io:12773$$pDissertations$$pGLOBAL_SET
000012773 983__ $$aDissertation