Dr. Pablo Iván Argüello

Street musicians in a context of gentrification in the Mexico City Historic Center.

Through empirical, theoretical and documentary references, I analyze the conflicts derived from the revitalization processes in the Mexico City Historic Center, in relation to the work of street musicians in public space.

Emphasis on the mechanisms of resistance that musicians carry out through routines and rituals of (re) appropriation in territories that I have cataloged as epicenters of revitalization; which represent urban nuclei of socialization where authoritarian-type regulations have been imposed. It should be noted that the processes called by local governments for revitalization mask other types of transformations in which the co-optation of public spaces by government institutions, private companies (national and transnational) and powers that be has been encouraged. This has generated a series of disputes over the use of public space for certain purposes and, in turn, has raised fractures in the sense of place of the musicians due to their position as agents in a defenseless state.