Arnauld, Manzanilla y Smith (eds.) 2012 The Neighborhood....pdf (original) (raw)

This chapter reviews the data about foreign neighborhoods and multiethnic neighborhoods in Teotihuacan.

In The Neighborhood as a Social and Spatial Unit in Mesoamerican Cities, edited by Marie Charlotte Arnauld, Linda R. Manzanilla and Michael E. Smith, pp. 1-26. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

This book chapter offers final comments bearing on the rural/urban question, the district/ward difference, the altepetl concept (Lockhart sensu), Mayapan and Teotihuacan as two examples of large dense settlements, and last, how to relate urban intermediate units and governement administration with Houses (Levi Strauss sensu).

We introduce urban neighborhoods and districts as archaeological concepts, and illustrate them with the example of Bhaktapur, a Hindu city in Nepal. We describe the Aztec calpolli, the best-documented case of neighborhoods in Mesoamerica, as a basis for understanding other Mesoamerican residential zones. A review of previous research on Mesoamerican neighborhoods provides a context for the contributions of the chapters in this volume. We argue that the term “barrio” is an inappropriate terms for the neighborhoods ...

In this paper we report preliminary findings of a study that examines the historical formation of the principally Mexicano West Side of San Antonio. Our thesis is dialectical: a cultural point – counterpoint of the ‘‘socially deforming (barrioizing) and the culturally affirming (barriological) spatial practices’’ (Villa, 2000, 8) that have characterized the relationship between Anglos and Mexicans since the Mexican- American War of 1846–1848 and the Anglo conquest of the northern area of Mexico now known as South Texas, a relationship that has served to frame both groups and to re-enforce respective cultural identities. By taking a historical view of the relationship, we are attempting to ‘‘broadly identify a historical continuity between past and present circumstances influencing the production of barrio social space and its representations’’ (Villa, 2000, 8). The authors argue that barriology offers a method for understanding neighborhood formation and maintenance in a time when the dynamics of this and maintenance have become central issues in community research, thus they address the following questions:  Is there something unique about the Mexicano community in the United States that promotes social cohesion and that can therefore account for the unexpected population health status of the Paradox?  Is there something about the formation of social capital in the Mexicano community that can be understood by taking a barriological approach to the study of that community?