Blog #3: 'Orden Y Progreso'

 

‘Orden y Progreso’:

A Pedestrian Perspective of Porfirian Oaxaca de Juárez

It is hard to imagine that within a world, dominated by transnational corporations, technological affluence, and overwhelming intensification of industrialized economies, that there remains a vestigial sanctuary of colonial, “old world” society.

In “Visions of the Emerald City” by Professor Mark Overmyer-Velásquez, the professor vividly describes that the transition from conventional existence to contemporary livelihood in 18^th century Mexico, can be found embedded within the “Porfiriato”. The Porfiriato being the period between 1877, and 1911 during which Porfirio Díaz served as president (pg. 3). Within the first several passages you can ascertain that the idea of modernity is a cultural construct that emerges out of the discursive relationship between things characterized as modern and things denoted as being traditional. This might seem like an incredibly simplistic perspective on an incredibly complex, at times elusive, idea. However, between the field lectures: walking amongst the aging, cobblestone streets, the palimpsest of the meticulous urban planning, and the bastions of Porfirian glory, in the effects of statues and intricately designed parks, are all remnants of a dictatorship that witnessed peace, an expansion of infrastructure, yet experienced inconceivable government repression. With this pedestrian perspective in conjunction with publications discussing the Porfiriato, it is quite easy to disseminate between the sights of modern day Oaxaca, and aspects of its past.

It can be depicted as an era of discipline, where heightened industrialization and urbanization and growth in population, made this a much more intensified experience of the ‘elitist’ construction of the city. The Porfirian politics aimed to centralize the wealth confined within the city limits, and created suburban areas or “ensanches”, as a away to remove urban blight; cantinas, vagrants, prostitution, to the periphery. A phrase used during this period was “taming, uncivilized nature”.

This form of landscape architecture is visible in modern Oaxaca City, but historically noted in the nations capital of Mexico City. “…the preferential treatment of national capitals over their provincial complements essentially recasts on an internal level the center/periphery and civilization/barbarism dichotomies asserted in theories of development.” (pg.8).  Where in the zócalo, it is encircled with monuments, gardens, churches and cathedrals of incredible size and splendor, venturing away from its borders and into the fringes of Oaxaca de Juárez, the city reveals its schizophrenia. Throughout my trip to Oaxaca de Juárez, I have been captivated by the old-world temperament of this culturally conflicted city; walking along the sidewalks watching the daily routine of its inhabitants, oblivious or intentionally ignorant of the state of affairs of the world beyond them, only concerned with their life from one corner of calle Aldama to the other corner of calle Cinco de Mayo. Porfirian politics, has been transcended by Oaxaca existentialism.

- Miguel -