The Physical Divisions of Guatemala City
Flying
into Guatemala City is always a disconcerting, emotional experience for me. As
the sprawling, disorganized clusters of light begin to appear beneath the
plane, I’m always overwhelmed by a combination of relief and incertitude: on
the one hand, I’m back, I’m home yet on the other hand, I’m
always shocked by the size and sheer complexity of the City. With over
4,100,000 inhabitants[1]
in just 996 squared kilometers all making up a city of distinct yet connected
sectors, it is easy to feel a bit unnerved. This summer, as I flew into what
I’ve always considered home, I realized how little
I knew of the city, how I had always taken the capital for granted.
Nevertheless, amidst the tangle of streets, slums, ravines and growing number
of high rises, I began to perceive a certain structure that not only prevails
in the physical organization of the City but also manifests itself in minds of
Guatemalans. Whether or not one causes the other would have to be analyzed and
studied more carefully, yet the fact remains that both the physical and mental
manifestations of division are closely linked.
Physical Boundaries
Before attempting to understand the complex processes and practices which reinforce these patterns of separation, it is necessary to be familiar with certain characteristics about Guatemala City. The first is the diverse nature of the capital’s inhabitants, especially considering that the country itself is already extremely diverse: e.g. Just in terms of linguistic diversity, there are twenty-three recognized languages other than spanish, including twenty-one Mayan languages as well as the Xinca and Garífuna languages. While most of the inhabitants of the City are ladinos (a mix of mestizo or hispanicized peoples), there is a sizable indigenous population, as well as Chinese, South Korean, Jewish and European—especially a German and Spanish—communities. It is important to note that the multicultural nature of Guatemala City remains is still very much divided by ethnic identifications. Exemplifying this point, one of my informants made the following observation: “At present, there are people who say to you clearly that they can conduct businesses with any indígena, but that they would never, in their wildest dreams, allow their daughters to go out with them.” This is not only the case with ladino and indigenous relations, as one of my Chinese friends complained over the summer that her mother had made very clear she should marry someone from the Chinese community.
The second disquieting characteristic the City possesses is the stark architectural contrast between the buildings in different areas of the city, the socioeconomic disparities existent in the country and specifically in the City are very much manifested in the houses, edifices and even the different shopping centers all over capital. Expanding on this theme, Kevin O’Neill described Guatemala City “a small and economically polarized capital” in his book, City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala, where he explores the apathetic and inactive attitude of Guatemalans when it comes to citizenship (O’Neill 2009). Although from my perspective as a Central American, Guatemala City seems like a large city, I cannot deny that it is certainly a highly economically polarized locale. This, in turn, brings me to the third, and possibly the most active process in reinforcing the capital’s divided nature: the physical layout of the City itself.
The social order of Guatemala City is very much maintained by the clear separation between the zonas[2] that make up the city. Zone One is known as the historical district, where many of the City’s touristic attractions and seats of government are located. On the other hand, Zone Three is known for being home to Guatemala City’s poorest, many of whom live around the dumpster and “make a living” by scavenging through the mounds of trash. Contrasting with this snapshot of the city is zone Ten, also known as La Zona Viva[3], as the heart of Guatemala City’s business district, it is divided into highly organized quadrants, where most of the City’s top hotels, restaurants and nightclubs are located. Building on these already evident distinctions is the fact that the zones are, for the most part, clearly divided by train-tracks, boulevards, ravines and other such visible boundaries. It is an exceedingly interesting exercise to analyze city maps por temática[4] as is the case in the City’s official website, http://infociudad.muniguate.com, where maps outlining each zone indicate levels of population density, availability of potable water, quality of roofs, social stratification safety, etc.
Mental Realities
The maps provide a very real physical reality of the inequality and division prevalent in the city and yet it is our own minds that recreate these realities into mental classifications. The physical layout of the city begins to manifest itself in the people who inhabit each zone. It becomes extremely evident in people’s minds which kinds of people and activities belong in each area, e.g. Zone Three is for the poor and the destitute whereas zone Ten is for the “development” and “modernization” of the country. I chose to place these two terms in quotation marks because they are not, as Wolf suggests, terms that can be interpreted to have significant meaning in and of them selves. They are very much symbolically and “ideologically charged” terminologies (Wolf 2010; 12) that are used to separate and discriminate between peoples in the city. As certain zones become associated with terms such as “modern”, “developed” or “progressive”, the people living or working in those areas are linked to those same connotations and are thus seen as “superior”. The opposite holds true as well: people coming from the areas with less infrastructure are automatically associated with poverty, stagnation and “third-worldness.”
In a similar manner, and perhaps in an even more powerful manner, the capital becomes a symbol for the metropolis: a place for “development” and “modernization.” Additionally, as the City gets juxtaposed with el interior[5] the latter becomes a euphemism for more derogatory sentiments of a “traditional” and backwards place where the impoverished campesino lives. These associations are then used to justify “the exploitative relation between metropolis and satellite” (Wolf 2010; 22). Such was the case this very summer when business and government leaders in the city held an Investment Summit promoting Guatemala’s natural resources to foreign companies, against the will of the peoples living in the areas where these resources are found. Thus, as the names of the zones are turned into more tangible “things” (Wolf 2010; 3), people begin believing that because they come from a certain area of the City or the country, they begin to believe that they must then be the type of person corresponding to that area’s stereotype. Cultural Scripting (Leclerc-Madlala 2009) then, becomes a very real everyday practice among Guatemalans. For example, during an extremely self-analytical and insightful moment during one of my own interviews, Carlos[6], one of my informants, became aware of these cultural scripts and addressed how he had personally dealt with the behaviors that were assumed and expected of him as an indigenous newcomer to the City. He spoke about the challenges of breaking free from these expectations and how this was a major step towards becoming a college-educated, successful businessman.
Conclusions
Despite having lived in Guatemala City all my life, this summer I learnt to never underestimate the complexities and symbolic processes which occur in our day to day life in the city. I came to appreciate, albeit in a sardonic way, the extremely visual way in which the paradoxes of inequality manifest themselves in the capital. However, there are still many questions which remain unanswered in my mind, most of them theoretical, as I wish to know more about core-periphery analyses, but others very personal: Is it possible that my being from the City can influence or bias my conception of the City? Then again, is it truly necessary as an anthropologist to be purely objective? But what if the fact that I’m a capitalina influenced the way my informants viewed me and responded to my questions? How do I account for this in work?
[1] Represents number of people living in the metropolitan area.
[2] Zones. There are a total of 25 zonas, each with it’s distinct characteristics, stereotypes and attractions (or in some cases, due to high rates of violence, repulsion).
[3] Literally, the “alive” or “lively” zone.
[4] by themes.
[5] Basically, the rest of the country, but more specifically the areas of the country which are devoted to agriculture and are composed mainly of indigenous populations.
[6] Pseudonym.
Before attempting to understand the complex processes and practices which reinforce these patterns of separation, it is necessary to be familiar with certain characteristics about Guatemala City. The first is the diverse nature of the capital’s inhabitants, especially considering that the country itself is already extremely diverse: e.g. Just in terms of linguistic diversity, there are twenty-three recognized languages other than spanish, including twenty-one Mayan languages as well as the Xinca and Garífuna languages. While most of the inhabitants of the City are ladinos (a mix of mestizo or hispanicized peoples), there is a sizable indigenous population, as well as Chinese, South Korean, Jewish and European—especially a German and Spanish—communities. It is important to note that the multicultural nature of Guatemala City remains is still very much divided by ethnic identifications. Exemplifying this point, one of my informants made the following observation: “At present, there are people who say to you clearly that they can conduct businesses with any indígena, but that they would never, in their wildest dreams, allow their daughters to go out with them.” This is not only the case with ladino and indigenous relations, as one of my Chinese friends complained over the summer that her mother had made very clear she should marry someone from the Chinese community.
The second disquieting characteristic the City possesses is the stark architectural contrast between the buildings in different areas of the city, the socioeconomic disparities existent in the country and specifically in the City are very much manifested in the houses, edifices and even the different shopping centers all over capital. Expanding on this theme, Kevin O’Neill described Guatemala City “a small and economically polarized capital” in his book, City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala, where he explores the apathetic and inactive attitude of Guatemalans when it comes to citizenship (O’Neill 2009). Although from my perspective as a Central American, Guatemala City seems like a large city, I cannot deny that it is certainly a highly economically polarized locale. This, in turn, brings me to the third, and possibly the most active process in reinforcing the capital’s divided nature: the physical layout of the City itself.
The social order of Guatemala City is very much maintained by the clear separation between the zonas[2] that make up the city. Zone One is known as the historical district, where many of the City’s touristic attractions and seats of government are located. On the other hand, Zone Three is known for being home to Guatemala City’s poorest, many of whom live around the dumpster and “make a living” by scavenging through the mounds of trash. Contrasting with this snapshot of the city is zone Ten, also known as La Zona Viva[3], as the heart of Guatemala City’s business district, it is divided into highly organized quadrants, where most of the City’s top hotels, restaurants and nightclubs are located. Building on these already evident distinctions is the fact that the zones are, for the most part, clearly divided by train-tracks, boulevards, ravines and other such visible boundaries. It is an exceedingly interesting exercise to analyze city maps por temática[4] as is the case in the City’s official website, http://infociudad.muniguate.com, where maps outlining each zone indicate levels of population density, availability of potable water, quality of roofs, social stratification safety, etc.
Mental Realities
The maps provide a very real physical reality of the inequality and division prevalent in the city and yet it is our own minds that recreate these realities into mental classifications. The physical layout of the city begins to manifest itself in the people who inhabit each zone. It becomes extremely evident in people’s minds which kinds of people and activities belong in each area, e.g. Zone Three is for the poor and the destitute whereas zone Ten is for the “development” and “modernization” of the country. I chose to place these two terms in quotation marks because they are not, as Wolf suggests, terms that can be interpreted to have significant meaning in and of them selves. They are very much symbolically and “ideologically charged” terminologies (Wolf 2010; 12) that are used to separate and discriminate between peoples in the city. As certain zones become associated with terms such as “modern”, “developed” or “progressive”, the people living or working in those areas are linked to those same connotations and are thus seen as “superior”. The opposite holds true as well: people coming from the areas with less infrastructure are automatically associated with poverty, stagnation and “third-worldness.”
In a similar manner, and perhaps in an even more powerful manner, the capital becomes a symbol for the metropolis: a place for “development” and “modernization.” Additionally, as the City gets juxtaposed with el interior[5] the latter becomes a euphemism for more derogatory sentiments of a “traditional” and backwards place where the impoverished campesino lives. These associations are then used to justify “the exploitative relation between metropolis and satellite” (Wolf 2010; 22). Such was the case this very summer when business and government leaders in the city held an Investment Summit promoting Guatemala’s natural resources to foreign companies, against the will of the peoples living in the areas where these resources are found. Thus, as the names of the zones are turned into more tangible “things” (Wolf 2010; 3), people begin believing that because they come from a certain area of the City or the country, they begin to believe that they must then be the type of person corresponding to that area’s stereotype. Cultural Scripting (Leclerc-Madlala 2009) then, becomes a very real everyday practice among Guatemalans. For example, during an extremely self-analytical and insightful moment during one of my own interviews, Carlos[6], one of my informants, became aware of these cultural scripts and addressed how he had personally dealt with the behaviors that were assumed and expected of him as an indigenous newcomer to the City. He spoke about the challenges of breaking free from these expectations and how this was a major step towards becoming a college-educated, successful businessman.
Conclusions
Despite having lived in Guatemala City all my life, this summer I learnt to never underestimate the complexities and symbolic processes which occur in our day to day life in the city. I came to appreciate, albeit in a sardonic way, the extremely visual way in which the paradoxes of inequality manifest themselves in the capital. However, there are still many questions which remain unanswered in my mind, most of them theoretical, as I wish to know more about core-periphery analyses, but others very personal: Is it possible that my being from the City can influence or bias my conception of the City? Then again, is it truly necessary as an anthropologist to be purely objective? But what if the fact that I’m a capitalina influenced the way my informants viewed me and responded to my questions? How do I account for this in work?
[1] Represents number of people living in the metropolitan area.
[2] Zones. There are a total of 25 zonas, each with it’s distinct characteristics, stereotypes and attractions (or in some cases, due to high rates of violence, repulsion).
[3] Literally, the “alive” or “lively” zone.
[4] by themes.
[5] Basically, the rest of the country, but more specifically the areas of the country which are devoted to agriculture and are composed mainly of indigenous populations.
[6] Pseudonym.