Abstract

ORTIZ ALVIS., Alfredo  and  DIAZ NUNEZ., Verónica Livier. Urban Agoraphobia and Retribalization: Paradoxes of Security Yearning within Intramural Community Ties. Urban Ethnography of a Gated Community in Zapopan, Mexico. Rev. Ciudades Estados Política [online]. 2021, vol.8, n.2, pp.69-88.  Epub May 13, 2022. ISSN 2462-9103.

The gating phenomenon constitutes a consolidated aspect of Latin American urban development, in Mexico the current security crisis contributes to the perception of vulnerability, favoring its massive implementation. The relationship between fear and confinement is here analyzed from the concept of urban agoraphobia, a category of analysis that embodies four fundamental aspects: global, State-related, social and individual. Under the concept of security as either collective good or commodity -understood as attainable product-, and through the use of urban-ethnographical techniques (interviews, narrative, cognitive mapping) we seek to test the premise that, when acquiring a household within these gated developments, the resident opts for the interceding of a virtual blindage against the insecure environment of the open city by integrating a hypothetically tighter, more participatory sense of community and membership, where control and the cohabitation among equals provide safety. The aim of the article is to unveil and understand the case study inhabitants' fears, expectations, experiences and residential elections by means of their narratives; considering the intercommunitarian fabric as an emergent defensive instrument in the face of environments deemed adverse. As a result of the research, conflicts related to limited decision-making capacity and poor condominal administration were identified, issues that, far from the harmonic, safe utopia usually ascribed to intramural environments, weaken their sense of belonging and neighborly identification, while fostering retribalization and overprotection tendencies derived from mistrust and conflict among residents.

Keywords : gated communities; urban fears; insecurity; sense of community; urban ethnography.

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