The Efficiency of Exclusion: Gated Communities, Informality and Social Mobilization in Mexico City

FRANK MUELLER; RAMIRO SEGURA

Yokohama

Congreso; XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology.; 2014

International Sociological Association (ISA)

This paper analyzes the double-edged meaning of informality at the intersection of urban inequalities, landed property, and power in urban Latin America. Our study of the Zona Poniente in the fragmented western periphery of Mexico City allows us to identify situations of social interaction in which the narrative use of informality is central to social and cultural distinction. We find that the standard story -and normatively disparaging construction- of urban informality exercised by marginalized urban poor people must be complemented by an analysis of upper class elite practices, particularly in private-sector real estate development. The real estate development industry occupies a critical place, materially and symbolically, in structuring the urbanization in which wealthy private interests employ the attribute of informality to stave off "Third World" settlements and enable a "First World" lifestyle in gated communities. In the discourses and practices of neighborhood organizations, public planning authorities and real estate developers the referent "informality" takes on defensive and exclusionary functions and serves as referent for social mobilization against the perceived informality of the local elite.