Art in the Streets of a Shattered City

Abstract

The world economy has detonated processes of re-territorialization in Latin American cities to favor their aspirations to be distinguished as global cities. The economical dynamics of globalization emerging from their public politics have increased social inequalities having their manifestations on one hand, in economical polarization of the urban area and on the other, in the gentrification and increasing social segmentation and fragmentation of the urban area. The result has been a new, socio-economically and culturally shattered geography of centrality and marginality with frictions between them having their manifestations in ourbreaks of contesting non-institutional creative and artistic practices of local communities and urban tribes, among them projects of art in the street and street art. These creative practices have been used by local urban communities as manifestations of civil resistance to denounce their marginalized situation and to demand major visibility in local public politics. In the framework of global creative economy thus, these illegitimate creative practices have been threatened by public politics favoring creative industries to convert them to new innovative cultural goods and services to impulse the production of aggregated value and through it, neutralize their contesting character. Thus, this paper analyses the cases of urban muralism in Xanenetla, Puebla, and street art in Cholula, Puebla, in order to study the impact of the dynamics of globalized economy on the local contesting culture and art as a fragmenting urban force.