LIVING IN CALCUTTA AND WORKING IN
VERSAILLES?
A Case Study of Place Identity and Social Structure in the
Usaquén Locality in Bogotá (Colombia)
University of Amsterdam Camila Molinos Iragorri
UvANetID: 10498702 Master Thesis
Master of Science in Sociology, track Social Problems and Social policy First reader: Prof. Martha Montero-Sieburth
Second reader: Prof. Barbara Da Roit
1
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... 2 PREFACE ... 3 INTRODUCTION ... 4 PROBLEM STATEMENT ... 5 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ... 9 RESEARCH QUESTIONS... 14 METHODOLOGY ... 15 RESEARCH DESIGN ... 15 NEGOTIATING ACCESS ... 15 DATA COLLECTION ... 16 DATA ANALYSIS... 17 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ... 17 FINDINGS ... 19THE PARTICIPANTS AND THE STUDY AREA ... 19
IDENTITY OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD ... 20
IDENTITY WITH THE NEIGHBORHOOD ... 31
VALIDITY... 34
CONCLUSION... 37
REFERENCES ... 39
APPENDICES ... 41
APPENDIX A – Interview guide ... 42
APPENDIX B – Letter of presentation ... 45
APPENDIX C – Maps ... 46
2
ABSTRACT
Bogotá is a socially segregated city. Almost half of the population lives in areas considered to have the worst housing units and nearby infrastructure. In addition, these areas are usually located in the southern peripheries of the city. On the contrary, the areas with the best housing units and nearby infrastructure are concentrated in the north-east side of the city, hosting only 4% of the city’s population. Based on these circumstances, this research attempted to explore how the people of Bogotá experience their city.
Among the inhabitants of the city, delivery men who work in the Usaquén locality were chosen to be the focus of the study. This decision was based on the fact that this specific group of delivery men usually belongs to the lower class of the city, while the Usaquén locality is the preferred residential location of the upper class. In other words, these people experience on a daily basis the contrasts and the similarities between the residential areas of the different social groups. Thus, the study of their experiences of the city, in particular of the Usaquén locality, provided insights into the way in which the people from Bogotá experience their city, a socially segregated city.
Understanding place identity as both the image people have of a place and the way in which they identify with it, conducting this type of study seemed to be most appropriate for the purpose of this research. The study shows how delivery men’s experience of their working area involves ambivalent feelings towards it. In particular, they construct the image of their working area by comparing it with their dwelling areas. Since they find these two places to be very different to one another, they feel they do not belong to the former. Yet, thanks to their working experience, delivery men get to know their working area and life within it quite well, which allows them to move in and through the area like a fish in water. All in all, delivery men seem to experience their working area as if it was a different city than the one in which they live. Thus, based on the findings of this research, one could argue that Bogotá is experienced by its inhabitants as a comprehensive territory that groups together different cities.
3
PREFACE
Hágase la prueba con cualquier escalera exterior; vencido el primer sentimiento de incomodidad e incluso de vértigo se descubrirá a cada peldaño un nuevo ámbito que si bien forma parte del ámbito del peldaño precedente, al mismo tiempo lo corrige, lo critica y lo ensancha. Piénsese que muy poco antes, la última vez que se había trepado en la forma usual por esa escalera, el mundo de atrás quedaba abolido por la escalera misma, su hipnótica sucesión de peldaños; en cambio bastará subirla de espaldas para que un horizonte limitado al comienzo por la tapia del jardín salte ahora hasta el campito de los Peñaloza, abarque luego el molino de la turca, estalle en los álamos del cementerio, y con un poco de suerte llegue hasta el horizonte de verdad […] A lo mejor después, cuando gire en redondo y entre en el piso alto de su casa, en su vida doméstica y diaria, comprenderá que también allí había que mirar muchas cosas en esa forma, que también en una boca, un amor, una novela, había que subir hacia atrás.
Julio Cortázar
Más Sobre Escaleras
This research began as part of my personal project to understand the place that I come from. I was born in Bogotá (Colombia) 28 years ago. I have lived most of my life in the same apartment located in the northeast side of this city, in a neighborhood called Santa Bárbara. I went to a private school and a private university. Both of my parents are professionals. Thus, compared to the majority of the population of my country, one could say that I belong to a group of people who was born and who lives in privileged conditions.
To me Colombia is a place full of contrasts; in particular with regard to the socioeconomic characteristics of the population. Although, this is not a secret to the world or to us, I do feel it has become excessively normalized. Many horrible things have become ‘normal’ in Colombia: getting killed, getting kidnapped, getting robbed, etc. This does not mean we Colombians do not care; I hope we do, but we act as if we do not. Indifference, apathy and passivity towards our shared reality describe to me our daily attitude.
However, this is just my opinion and I would love to be proven wrong. In the meantime, this research is my first attempt to leave this state of mind and to criticize my own reality and myself. It is my first attempt to listen. It is my first attempt to follow the advice of Julio Cortázar and climb a ladder backwards; a ladder that standing in my parents’ apartment will help me (us?) see the world that I (we?) had until now obliterated from view.
4
INTRODUCTION
Like every night at my parent’s house in Bogotá, my father was cooking in the kitchen and I was setting the table. My mother, however, was at a meeting on the ground floor of the building. As the treasurer of the administrative board she has to attend to their monthly meetings where they discuss issues such as regulations and maintenance of the common areas of the building. All of a sudden she opened the door of the apartment and shout: “You guys won’t believe what the neighbors proposed!” My father came out of the kitchen; dinner was ready, we brought it to the table and sat down. My mother continued with her story: “Our neighbors are concerned with the possibility of being victims of home theft. So, as a way to increase our security measures they want to restrict the access of strangers to the building. In particular, they proposed banning delivery men from entering the building. So, from now on, every time we order something to be delivered here we have to go down to the ground floor and pick it up.” My father and I looked at her, waiting for the end of the story. She continued: “It seems completely stupid to me and I won’t accept it. So, that’s why I told them that from this day forward all delivery men are my cousins and as such they are invited to come to my apartment.” My mother succeeded: by claiming that every delivery man was her cousin, she managed to guarantee their access to her building.
Is there anything that could be problematic about this incident? One could think that it makes sense that people try to find ways to protect their houses and belongings when they feel insecure; especially in a city like Bogotá, which is characterized by its levels of insecurity. Moreover, even when people do not feel insecure, one could think it makes sense not to let ‘strangers’ enter your house. Indeed, the idea of my parent’s neighbors could make sense. But, does my mother’s solution make sense? Her neighbors certainly know that all delivery men are not her cousins. However, the fact that she claimed them to be prevented the neighbors’ idea from being implemented in the building. All in all, this event recreates two spatial behaviors: the neighbors, on the one hand, establishing access rules to protect their space; my mother, on the other hand, establishing opposite rules of access to her space in order to protect her comfort. I do not use this event with the intention of questioning the motives of the actions of the people involved, but as a way of introducing a research project that will attempt to make “spatial assumptions less covert, more visible […] and more up for debate” (Kuntz, 2010: 146).
This is, then, a study about the relationship between space and social life. A research framed under the work of those who claim that the physical world “is not merely a setting or backdrop, but an agentic player in the game—a force with detectable and independent effects on social life” (Gyerin, 2000: 466). Like Paddy O’Toole who, for instance, argues that even though we inhabit three worlds – “a physical world […] a world of ideas, concepts and theory and a world of interaction, practice and activity” – qualitative research has underprivileged the physical world over the other two (2010:121). By doing so, qualitative research is overlooking a world that “is both a manifestation and influence on our cultures, social structures, sense of agency, identity and power structures” (O’Toole & Were, 2008: 631). Or, like Aaron Kuntz, who claims that space should be conceived as relationally productive (2010:45), grouping at the same time “material places (buildings, the four walls of a classroom and so on) and social spaces (the meanings we make of our material surroundings)” (2010: 146). Thus, according to Kuntz, those analyses that recognize space “as a productive process engage in research as social critique”, as
5 they “begin to question normalized conceptions of context, setting or environment, and the consequences of such assignation” (2010: 147).
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Bogotá is the capital city of Colombia, as well as the largest city both in territory and in population size. It was founded by the Spanish in 1538 and, like most of the cities they built in America, it followed a center/periphery scheme. That is to say, the most important social and political activities took place in the city center, whereas the peripheries were the residential areas of the lower classes of the population.
From its foundation up to the first half of the twentieth century the urban area of the city developed respecting its original concentric system design (Jaramillo, 2007). However, since the 1950’s, Bogotá’s spatial structure started to change to its actual form, that is, it switched from a center/periphery scheme of spatial distribution of the social classes to a north/south one (Jaramillo, 2007; Dureau, 2000a, 2000c). The wealthiest families moved out of the center towards the north side of the city (Jaramillo, 2007; Dureau, 2000b). The middle classes either occupied the areas that were abandoned by the wealthiest families or moved towards the west side of the city (Dureau, 2000b). The poorest families, like the wealthiest, moved out of the city center, but in their case they settled in areas located in the southern part of the city (Jaramillo, 2007; Dureau, 2000b).
The process of urban development and north/south social division of Bogotá continued throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The city’s urban development took place primarily as a result of private initiatives and not based on a centralized urban development plan. For instance, Martin and Ceballos state that in the twentieth century, Bogotá grew as an aggregate of new neighborhoods and not due to a planned street network design, public utilities model or public space scheme (2004: 49). Similarly, Dureau claims that, in a highly segregated metropolitan area, geographically restrained by their financial capacities, the people from the different social groups adopted diverse construction strategies through which they built up their neighborhoods (2000b: 96). In fact, in the 1980’s, due to Bogotá’s high levels of inequality “people started to talk about ghettos, discrimination and a city divided between a northern Versailles and a southern Calcutta” (Martin & Ceballos, 2004: 64; own translation).
In the 1990’s, with the enactment of Law 142 of 1994, geographically defined areas of the city started to be categorized in six groups according to the characteristics of the housing units and the nearby infrastructure. This law was designed with the intention of setting up a subsidy system for the payment of public utilities. Strata six and five pay an extra charge for their utilities, subsidizing strata one to three. Strata one to three pay less for their utilities than the real cost and only stratum four is charged the real price. According to Bogotá’s District Planning Secretariat (SDP for its acronym in Spanish) the numbers of the strata can be translated into the following socioeconomic categories: stratum one = low-low; stratum two = low; stratum three = middle-low; stratum four = middle; stratum five = middle-high; and, stratum six = high (SDP, 2011: 70).
Even though Law 142 of 1994 was designed as a subsidy model for the payment of utilities, it has also been argued that it officialized Bogotá’s social segregation. For instance, Thibert and Osorio state that this law reinforced the city’s spatial segregation by effectively identifying “certain areas of the city as ‘poor’, ‘middle-class’ or ‘rich’” (2014: 1319). Similarly, Uribe et al.
6 argue that the stratification system “has permeated the collective imagination regarding the ways in which people relate to one another, producing a division of the entire social fabric” (2006: 92; own translation). Uribe and Pardo (2006) conducted a study in which they asked the participants to attribute positive and negative characteristics to the people who reside in the different areas classified under the six strata on the scale. They found that “thinking that any citizen, regardless of their social status, can have positive or negative characteristics, is a perception shared by most of the residents of the three upper strata” (Uribe & Pardo, 2006: 202; own translation). On the contrary, people from the lowest strata areas attributed positive characteristics to people from their own stratum or from lower strata, while they attributed negative characteristics mostly to people who reside compared to them in upper strata areas (Uribe & Pardo, 2006: 201).
Today Bogotá is still a segregated city. In fact, as shown on map No. 1 (see appendix C), Bogotá’s current spatial scheme of distribution of the social classes is similar to the one that originated during the 1950’s. The areas classified as strata one or two are located on the peripheries of the city, mostly in the south, whereas, strata six and five areas are concentrated in the north east side of Bogotá. According to data from the SDP, in 2011 49% of the inhabitants of the city lived in areas classified under strata one or two, while only 4% of the population lived in areas belonging to strata six and five.
To sum up, the context of this study so far has, on the one hand, almost half of the population living in the peripheries of the city, which happen to be the areas with the worst conditions of housing units and nearby infrastructure. In addition, this group of people apparently has a negative image of the people who live in areas belonging to the highest strata on the scale. On the other hand, there is a small group of the population who lives in an area with the best conditions of housing units and infrastructure of the city. In contrast with the other, these people apparently do not link people’s personal characteristics with strata. Under those circumstances, the question arises about how the people from Bogotá experience their city; or, what is the same, it seems relevant to enquire about the way in which people experience a socially segregated city.
Why studying the Usaquén locality and delivery men?
Before being adjoined to Bogotá in December 1954, Usaquén used to be a municipality made up of a group of ranches. Located in northern Bogotá, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the ranches that made up Usaquén were owned by families belonging to the city’s upper class. Since its early years up to the present, Usaquén has been one of the preferred dwelling areas of this group of the population. As shown in map No. 1 (see appendix C), a portion of the area where strata six and five housing units are concentrated belongs to this locality. In fact, in 2011, according to data from the SDP, 41% of the people who reside in housing units classified under strata six or five were residents of Usaquén, while only 3% of those who reside in areas belonging to strata one to three were part of this locality’s territory. Moreover, according to the same data, in 2011 Usaquén hosted 56% of the people who reside in stratum six areas. In short, Usaquén represents that area of the city that mostly ‘belongs to the rich’.
Although Usaquén is where a large portion of Bogotá’s upper class lives, it is also visited on a daily basis by people who reside in other strata areas. In particular, every day a group of people
7 from the lowest strata (who mostly live in the peripheries, see map No. 1, appendix C) travel across the city to go work in the Usaquén locality, that place inhabited by the wealthiest group of the population. The daily trajectories and the working experiences in the locality gives these people the opportunity to get to know the different spaces of the city; notably, they experience the contrast between opposite areas: lower strata areas vs. upper strata areas.
Among this group of people that assembles individuals who, to name a few, work as doormen, maids or personal drivers, this research focused on studying the experience of delivery men. Why delivery men? In general, the delivery service offered by restaurants, fast food chains, pharmacies, corner shops, etc., located in strata six or five areas of Usaquén, is done by people who reside in strata one to three areas. Thus, on a daily basis, delivery men navigate through the city, at least through strata three to five areas, and have the opportunity to get to know the city, its contrasts and its similarities. In other words, since delivery men reside in areas classified as belonging to the lowest strata on the scale, they know life within the areas with the worst conditions of housing units and nearby infrastructure. In addition, in the particular case of those who work in Usaquén, because of their occupation they also know the residents and the areas with the best conditions of housing units and nearby infrastructure.
All in all, delivery men were chosen because their work makes them experience the contrasting areas of a segregate city on a daily basis. Their particular situation can then provide insights regarding the way in which the people from Bogotá experience their city, in the sense that they reside and work in the opposite ends of the strata scale. Thus, this research sought to, first, understand how delivery men experience their working area, and, second, it tried to identify what type of relation (if any) they establish with this place.
Why conduct a study of place identity?
Relph defined place identity as the image people have of a particular place, an image they construct based on their experiences as both individuals and members of society. According to the same author, the study of place “is interesting in its own right as a fundamental expression of a man’s involvement in the world” (Relph, 1976: 4). The study of place identity, continues Relph, implies at the same time understanding how people perceive and experience a specific location of the world; that is to say, it allows exploring the image they have of this place and the degree to which they identify with it.
Considering the above, conducting a study of place identity was considered to be most appropriate in the sense that it points towards the understanding of the way in which delivery men perceive their working area, as well as the degree to which they relate with it. Moreover, since the way in which Relph conceives place identity takes into account that people experienced the environment as individuals and as members of society, conducting this type of study also acknowledges that delivery men experience the city, simultaneously, through their individual experiences and through their social status.
Why is this study case worth studying?
This research tried to build on the work that has been done in the social sciences regarding the relation between people and places (for a review see Lewicka, 2011 and Manzo, 2003). In order to do so, the three challenges Manzo argued that future research should address were taken into account. First, claimed Manzo, the empirical work focused on studying people’s relations with
8 places “has not explored the role of negative/ambivalent feelings and experiences as fully” (2003: 48). Second, it has emphasized residential settings, meaning that “much more needs to be learned about the role and meaning of places outside of nature and the realm of the local neighborhood” (Manzo, 2003: 50). And, third, it “does not locate emotional relationships to places in a larger sociopolitical context” when, in fact, “our relationships to places are influenced by who we are, with all of the political implications of this identity” (Manzo, 2003: 54). Thus, the particular case of the Usaquén locality and delivery men provided additional empirical insights in the sense that it studied: (i) ambivalent feelings and experiences with a place (as would be shown further on); (ii) people’s relation with a setting where they do not reside; and, (iii) the relations between people and place were located in a larger sociopolitical context: a socially segregated city and the perception of a group of people who belong to the lower classes.
Besides providing additional insights to the work done in the social sciences regarding people’s relationships with places, the study case also contributes to the understanding of the way people experience Bogotá – a socially segregated city. According to Dureau, the study of Bogotá’s social segregation is still precarious (Dureau, 2000c: 168). Moreover, in her perspective, this type of study should “take into account the various spatial practices and uses of the city for different categories of the population” (Dureau, 2000c: 168; own translation). Therefore, by enquiring into delivery men’s experience of their working area, this research contributed to the task pointed out by Dureau. Still, it should be stressed here that, it contributed only in a limited way, since it only studied a small area of the city and only the perspective of one specific group of the population.
This document
On the whole, this research intended to understand how delivery men, who work in upper strata areas of the Usaquén locality, experience and relate with their working place. This was done with the purpose of providing empirical findings about how the inhabitants of Bogotá experience their city. With this in mind, the following document is divided in five sections. The first chapter describes the conceptual framework, which was specially constructed for this research. Following a technique called theoretical bricolage, elements from environmental psychology, critical social theory, feminism and phenomenology (the last three applied to the field of geography) were combined in order to understand the particular case of delivery men and their experience of the Usaquén locality. The second and third chapters present the research questions that guided the research and the methodology that was followed in order to conduct it. Once the theoretical and methodological aspects of the research are in place, the fourth chapter presents the data gathered during the fieldwork. That is to say, it describes the participants’ image of their working place and the ways in which they identify or not with it. Based on these results, in the last chapter, the possible contributions of this research are discussed on two fronts: (i) adding to the knowledge about people’s relationships with places; and, (ii) gaining insights about the way in which the inhabitants of Bogotá experience their city.
9
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The conceptual framework was constructed following a technique called theoretical bricolage, described by O’Toole as “[r]ather than using theories as ideologies, this approach uses theories as tools with which the data can be sorted, synthesized and compared” (2010: 127). In order to understand how delivery men experience the area in which they work, elements from different perspectives that can be applied to the study of place and its relationship with social life and/or the individual were combined: environmental psychology, critical social theory, feminism and phenomenology, the last three, applied to the field of geography.
In our daily lives we use space and place as synonyms, however, for the purpose of this research they are differentiated. Space designates the physical form of geographical locations, whereas place identifies “space[s] filled up by people, practices, objects, and representations” (Gyerin, 2000: 465). Based on this distinction, the main goal of this research was to conduct a study about place and not space. In other words, even though this project studied a specific geographical location – the area in which delivery men work –, its purpose was to understand how this space was experienced by a defined group of people – delivery men who work in the area.
Accordingly, this research used Gyerin’s definition of place, in which places assemble “three necessary and sufficient features” (2000: 464). First, places refer to specific geographical locations. Second, people build places adding to them what anthropologists call material culture: “the corporeal, tangible object constructed by humans” (O’Toole & Were, 2008: 617). Third, places have meaningfulness which means they are “interpreted, narrated, perceived, felt, understood, and imagined” (Gyerin, 2000: 465). Thus, continues Gyerin, the sociological enquiry regarding the study of place should focus on determining how the three features of place “intersect with social practices and structures, norms and values, power and inequality, difference and distinction” (2000: 468).
Place and social structure
Since social structure and place are part of the backbone of this research puzzle, finding a theoretical approach that explains how they are related and/or influence each other was one of the key aspects that needed to be addressed. The work of the geographers Edward Soja (critical geography) and Doreen Massey (feminist geography) seemed appropriate for meeting this theoretical need, that is, to be used as a way to frame the connection between social structure and place. Their contribution is particularly useful for understanding: (i) how social structure can be materialized in places; and (ii) how people’s social position conditions their experience of space and, thus, of place.
To begin with, Soja identifies three interrelated and overlapping spaces: physical, mental and social (1989: 120). Physical space is space in itself, as it naturally exists in the world; mental space is related to human cognition and perception (Soja, 1989: 121); and, social space identifies “the created space of social organization and production” (Soja, 1989: 79). Physical and mental spaces, clarifies the author, although incorporated into the construction of socially produced space “cannot be conceptualized as its equivalent” (Soja, 1989: 120). The same principle applies to physical and mental spaces. Thus, in his perspective, defining the
10 interconnections of these three spaces “remains one of the most formidable challenges to contemporary social theory” (1989: 120).
Consequently, Soja proposes an approach to “interpretive geography, […] which recognizes spatiality as simultaneously […] a social product (or outcome) and a shaping force (or medium) in social life” (1989: 7). To put it more simply, his approach to the study of spatiality postulates a dialectic relation between space and social life. Furthermore, he claims that “spatial structures and relations are the concrete manifestations of social structures and relations evolving over time, whatever the mode of production” (Soja, 1989: 127). In other words, he states that spatiality materializes social structure. Thus, Soja stands for the need to problematize space as a means to understand social life:
We must be insistently aware of how space can be made to hide consequences from us, how relations of power and discipline are inscribed into the apparently innocent spatiality of social life, how human geographies become filled with politics and ideology.
(1989: 6) Massey, on the other hand, claims that space should be conceptualized in terms of social relations, which include class relations. By doing so, it is now possible to explore a dimension that used to be conceived as static, a dimension “where nothing ‘happened’ […] a dimension devoid of effect or implications” (Massey, 1994: 3). This approach to the study of space has major implications, among which three are worth highlighting. First, according to Massey, people experience social relations differently depending on their position as well as their experience of space:
[T]he social relations of space are experienced differently, and variously interpreted, by those holding different positions as part of it.[…] All 'observers' (participants in social life) move relative to one another, each thinking of themselves at rest, and each therefore 'slicing the space-time continuum at different angles'.
(1994: 3) Second, argues Massey, this approach can lead to the understanding of the geometry of social/power relations: “since social relations are inevitably and everywhere imbued with power and meaning and symbolism, this view of the spatial is as an ever-shifting social geometry of power and signification” (1994: 3). Third, if space is understood in terms of social relations, space is necessarily dynamic because “social relations are never still” (Massey, 1994: 2); thus, the aim should be to always think in terms of space-time.
Accordingly, Massey claims space and place to be distinct. Since space is “thought of in the context of space-time and as formed out of social interrelations at all scales”, a place is then “a particular articulation of those relations, a particular moment in those networks of social relations and understandings” (1994: 5). Thus, in her perspective, the identities of a place “are always unfixed, contested and multiple” (1994: 5). Moreover, the identities of a place cannot be defined in counterposition to the external, but taking into account its connections with the external; thus, places are also “open and porous” (1994: 5).
Place as an experience
As mentioned before, this research studied place from the perspective of a specific group of people, namely, it tried to understand how delivery men experience the place in which they
11 work. Therefore, understanding how place is experienced by individuals and the (possible) outcome of this process also needed to be addressed from a theoretical perspective. For this matter, some aspects of the work done by environmental psychology and phenomenology applied to the field of geography were used. While the former explores the cognitive aspect of the experience of place and its consequences over the individual’s behavior, the latter studies the human experience of place through the meaning people attach to it.
Environmental Psychology studies the relation between individuals and their environment. For the purpose of this research, one aspect of this field of study was used: cognitive mapping. Cognitive mapping is defined by environmental psychologists as the product of two types of cognition that an individual has regarding his environment: spatial cognition and environmental cognition (Kitchin, 1994: 1). While the former identifies the physical, “the internalized reflection and reconstruction of space in thought” (Hart & Moore, as cited in Kitchin, 1994: 1), the latter refers to the internalized image individuals have about the different environments and the meaning they give to them (Moore & Golledge, as cited in Kitchin, 1994: 1). Thus, according to Hart and Conn, the study of cognitive mapping leads to the “simultaneous investigation of thinking, feeling, and acting in the environment” (as cited in Kitchin, 1994: 1).
What is important about cognitive mapping is that it is useful for understanding why and how the environment affects people’s behavior. In fact, a cognitive map is “a mental construct which we use to understand and know the environment”, a knowledge that we then use “to make spatial decisions” (Kitchin, 1994: 2). Therefore, people’s behavior should be studied through subjective factors, through the mental images individuals have of their environment (Kitchin, 1994: 6).
Cognitive maps have other two characteristics that are worth highlighting. First, they are dynamic in two senses. On the one hand, people’s permanent interaction with the environment implies that they are constantly learning about it, which leads them to update their cognitive map and, therefore, adjust their behavior. On the other hand, they are dynamic because they are constructed for specific events (Kitchin, 1994: 3). Hence, people’s cognitive map allows them to take into account all the elements they perceive of a particular context, combine them and adjust their behavior to that particular combination. In short, “cognitive maps are not independent of time and space and […] 'since each environment exists in a time-space context, so too will cognitions of those environments'” (Moore & Golledge, as cited in Kitchin, 1994: 3). Second, coupled with their dynamic aspect, cognitive maps are determined by people’s experiences:
Cognitive maps: suspend impressions, thoughts, feelings and ideas until, for some reason, consciously or unconsciously, the mind solicits, changes, and often distorts or manipulates its contents for some immediate purpose. In this way cognitive maps (images) allow us to bridge time, by using past experiences to understand present and future situations.
(Kitchin, 1994: 2). Phenomenology, on the other hand, sees places as centers of meaning (to individuals and to groups) derived from experience (Tuan, 1975). Tuan defines experience “as a cover-all term for the various models through which a person know his world” (1975: 153). Based on this definition, he argues that the human experience of place oscillates between places as “points in a spatial system” and places as “strong visceral feelings” (Tuan, 1975: 152). To put it more simply, in the perspective of phenomenology, space is an ontological structure:
12 Phenomenology focuses on the meanings and experiences of places via a descriptive, qualitative discovery of things in their own terms. It digs deeply into the ontological nature of humanity and considers ‘being in-the-world’ as a fundamental, irreducible essence—so that place is an inseparable part of existence. Here, the environment is an integral ontological structure.
(Manzo, 2003: 48) Among all the work done by geographers framed under the phenomenological perspective, this research included primarily the contribution of Edward Relph, in particular, his concepts of insideness, outsideness and place identity. He introduced these concepts as a way to understand the different meanings and relations people give and have with places. Roughly, insideness identifies “the degree of attachment, involvement, and concern that a person or group has for a particular place” (Seamon & Sowers, 2008: 45). Whereas outsideness describes a situation in which “people feel some sort of lived division or separation between themselves and the world” (Seamon & Sowers, 2008: 45). Insideness and outsideness represent two extreme situations, while in real life experience they hold a dialectical relationship:
[…] through varying combinations and intensities of outsideness and insideness, different places take on different identities for different individuals and groups, and human experience takes on different qualities of feeling, meaning, ambience, and action.
(Seamon & Sowers, 2008: 45) According to Relph places have three components: “the static physical setting, the activities, and the meanings” (1976: 47). These components are, according to the author, inseparably interwoven in people’s experiences of places (Relph, 1976: 47). In fact, they are held together by dialectical links (Relph, 1976: 48), associations that are particular to the individual experiences of people. Based on his personal experience a person constructs his image of a place; this image is what Relph defines as the identity of a place (1976: 56). This implies, then, that the same place can have different identities, depending on whom and the way in which this person experience that place.
Furthermore, Relph claims that more than being interested in understanding the identity of a place – of course from the perspective of those who experience it – it is also important to study people’s identity with that place (1976: 45). Thus, the study of place identity, from Relph’s perspective, involves two things: (i) deconstructing/constructing people’s image of places and (ii) understanding how people establish (if any) a relation with those places.
With this in mind, Relph argues that people experience their environment both as individuals and as members of society (1976: 36). As individuals, we usually have a profound attachment with a particular environment, which he identifies as home (1976: 40). Home is used here as a metaphor, “[h]ome is not just the house you happen to live in, it is not something that can be anywhere, that can be exchanged, but an irreplaceable centre of significance” (1976: 40). Taking their (inner) home as the point of departure – the image of a place where they have the highest level of insideness –, people arrange concentric zones and use their center as a parameter to establish relationships with other places. In other words, “each of us becomes the centre of a sort of mental space, arranged in concentric zones of decreasing interest and decreasing adherence” (Gabriel Marcel as cited in Relph, 1976: 49), in other words, of levels of insideness and outsideness.
13 On the other hand, Relph stresses the fact that individuals are also members of society (1976: 36), despite the particularities of their personal experience. As a matter of fact, continues the author, “while places and landscapes may be unique in terms of their content they are nevertheless products of common cultural and symbolic elements and processes” (Relph, 1976: 44). Accordingly, in his perspective, place identity has two structuration axes: one is the individual levels of insideness/outsideness, and the other “the social distribution of knowledge of places within and between individuals, groups, and the mass” (Relph, 1976: 56). In other words, what the author argues is that the individual images people have of places are constantly being socialized: “the identities of places are founded, like all images, on the interaction of […] the three opposing poles of the I, the Other, and the We” (Relph, 1976: 57). In this line of thought, similar to what Massey claims, Relph gives a role to social structure, claiming that the identity of a place varies according to it:
[I]dentity varies with the individual, group, or consensus image of that place. Indeed, for most purposes it appears that the image of a place is its identity and that to understand something of the social structure of images is an essential prerequisite for understanding identity.
14
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This research had four macro-questions, each one of which represents a stage on the path towards the understanding of the place identity of and with the study area. Thus, the first three questions look into possible aspects of the relation between individuals and places. The fourth question assembles the answers to the previous three, seeking to provide a description of the place identity of and with the study area from the perspective and experience of the delivery men who work there.
1. How do delivery men identify and describe the area in which they work?
1.1. How do delivery men identify and describe the material aspects of the area in which they work?
1.2. How do delivery men identify and describe the people of the area in which they work?
1.3. How do delivery men identify and describe their interaction with the people they encounter in the area in which they work?
2. What type of relationship (if any) do delivery men establish with the area in which they work?
2.1. What kind of emotions, experiences and memories do delivery men express towards the area in which they work?
2.2. What kind of cultural norms do delivery men identify and describe as proper of the area in which they work?
2.3. How do delivery men describe the social structure of the area in which they work and where/how do they place themselves within it?
3. How does the environment in the area in which delivery men work determine their behavior?
3.1. (How) Do delivery men think or feel they are expected to behave while they are working in the area?
3.2. What reasons do delivery men identify to support the role (if any) they have to play while working in the area in which they work?
4. In the perspective of delivery men, what is the place identity of the area in which they work and how do they relate with it?
15
METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
Given that this research sought to provide insights about people’s experiences of places, that is to say it took on a symbolic approach to the study of place, a qualitative research design was considered to be most appropriate. In fact, when Joseph Maxwell described the type of intellectual goals that qualitative research can help achieve, he summarized the goal of the present study:
In a qualitative study, you are interested not only in the physical events and behavior that are taking place, but also in how the participants in your study make sense of these, and how their understanding influences their behavior.
(2013: 30)
NEGOTIATING ACCESS
Once in the field, I followed three strategies in order to find, approach and invite delivery men to participate in this research. In addition, considering the fact that people are not usually willing to give interviews, especially about their personal lives, I offered the potential participants an economic incentive: 10.000 COP (more or less 4,00€) for the interview.i
Strategy No. 1: Order deliveries
During the entire fieldwork I stayed in an apartment located in the study area (my parents’ apartment). During the first week I ordered deliveries from different restaurants. When I received the order, I explained to the delivery man that I was conducting a study about the area in which he works, in particular about the way people see it (its physical aspects and life within it). I explained that for this research I needed to conduct a series of interviews for which I was willing to give monetary compensation to the participants, and then I invited him to participate. The six men I encountered following this strategy agreed to participate and we scheduled an appointment. However, all (except for one, who I interviewed) stood me up, so I decided to abandon this strategy.
Strategy No. 2: Approach the delivery men who came to the building where I was staying I asked the doormen of the building in which I was staying to let me know when delivery men came into the building. Thus, I met them in the lobby, I explained the project to them and invited them to participate. Following this strategy, I talked to 10 delivery men and nine of them accepted my invitation. As with the previous strategy, I scheduled appointments with those who said they wanted to participate. With this strategy I got two interviews, both with delivery men who are friends with the doormen of the building. The rest of the delivery men with whom I spoke in the lobby stood me up.
Strategy No. 3: Walk around the area
i To give the reader an idea of the price of work in Colombia: the country’s minimum wage for the year 2014 is
616.000 COP (more or less 236€), which means that the day of work is paid at around 20.530 COP (more or less 7,90€) and the hour of work is paid at 2.566 COP (more or less 1€).
16 Near the building where I stayed there are many commercial streets with restaurants, pharmacies, corner shops and other venues offering delivery services. Thus, I walked around the neighborhood and I visited different venues that offer delivery services to their clients. In some places, delivery men were outside on the street, so I approached them directly; in other places, I entered the venue and asked if I could talk to them. As I did with the previous two strategies I explained the project and invite them to participate. Three of them said they were free at the moment and we did the interview right away. The remaining eight asked me to schedule an appointment, usually for the next day. Based on my experience with the other two strategies, to avoid being stood up again, I told them that I would meet them at their work place. Although most of the delivery men I talked to declined my invitation (I did not count them), this ended up being the most effective strategy, in the sense that I was able to carry out 11 out of the 14 interviews this way (a reflection about the access strategies is provided at the end of the findings chapter).
All in all, this research followed a convenience sampling method. That is to say, the characteristics of the people who make up the sample were defined before entering the field (delivery men who work in the strata five and six areas of the Usaquén locality), and once in the field, the people who were interviewed were those delivery men who I either met on the street or in the lobby of the building where I was staying or those who delivered orders to me.
DATA COLLECTION
The field work lasted five weeks and the data collection process consisted in conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 delivery men who work in the study area. I decided to design an interview guide that would invite the participants to share their stories with me. I based this decision on the literature I read before entering the field; as explained in a previous chapter, people’s experiences of places help them build their cognitive maps and images of those places. Thus, I thought that designing questions that would induce the participants to trace, (re)build, and reflect on their history as delivery men would provide me with the information I needed. The interview guide, in Spanish and in English is provided in appendix A. The interviews
When I scheduled the interviews or met the participants at their work place, I asked them to choose where they wanted to conduct the interview. Following their preferences, two of the interviews were conducted in the apartment where I was staying; only the interviewee and I were present. The remaining 12 interviews were conducted in tiendasii located in the study area,
which were chosen by delivery men and where we were surrounded by other people (employees and clients of the venue).
Once we were both seated, I told the participants that I wanted to protect them and me from any possible inconvenience related to my research. I handed them a letter of presentation in which I provided information about the project and guaranteed that their identities would remain confidential (see a copy of the letter in appendix B). I asked them to sign the letter if they agreed with its content; they all signed the letter without expressing any concerns.
ii Tienda is the name given to the corner shops in Colombia; but, what makes them particular is that, besides selling
17 After signing the letter, I asked the participants if they would mind if I recorded the interview. They all agreed to be recorded. With the recorder on I started to ask the questions on the interview guide. I always asked all of them; still, in most of the interviews additional questions were asked, which were formulated based on the participants’ answers. At the end of the interview, I thanked the participants for their help and gave them the 10.000 COP I had offered when I invited them to participate.
DATA ANALYSIS
To analyze the data gathered in the in-depth interviews that were conducted, I used the following procedures and techniques:
Transcription
All the interviews were transcribed following the purist method; that is to say, they include every recorded noise and silence that took place during the conversation between the participants and me. In addition, since I did the transcriptions, I tried to include, when I remembered them, the gestures and signs the participants made or used during the interview. Memos
After each interview I wrote a memo reflecting on the conversation I had just had with the participant. These memos included reflections regarding the information they provided me with, as well as about methodological issues related to how the interview developed.
Categorization
All the transcriptions of the interviews were categorized using Atlas.ti. The codes used were the result of an inductive process. In particular, the categorization process had two stages. In the first stage I developed in vivo codes applied to every line of each interview. Once I finish the first round of categorization of the interviews, I reviewed the resulting codes and I re-categorized the interviews, merging some of the codes used in the previous stage.
When I had the final list of codes and their corresponding explanations, I decided to group them into four subjects: the neighborhood, the people in the neighborhood, scouring the neighborhood, and working in the neighborhood. I based this decision on the ideas of the authors that make up the conceptual framework of this research. On the aggregate, these authors emphasize how the physical characteristics of the study place, the activities people carry out in this place, the way individuals condition their behavior according to the setting, and the meanings they give to the previous aspects are key components of people’s experience and image of places.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
According to Alan Bryman there are four main areas that group together the general aspects of the ethical considerations in doing social research: lack of informed consent, invasion of privacy, deception and harm to participants (2008: 118). In the letter of presentation and the conversations I had prior to the interviews, I explained the project to every participant, I assured him that his identity would remain confidential, I offered him a (translated) copy of the research, and I stressed on the fact that his participation was voluntary and he could stop the
18 interview if he felt like to. I tried to reduce to the minimum the (possible) ethical problems this research could produce and/or encounter.
However, since I offered compensation to the participants for the interviews, it would be possible to argue that there is an ethical consideration involved here. In particular, if the participants were in a position where they really needed the money, they probably agreed to participate because of the money and not because they really wanted to. I cannot assure this was not the case of any of the participants. Nevertheless, I can argue that the compensation was offered as an incentive not as a coercive mechanism. The fact that most of the delivery men I talked to, and offered compensation to refused to participate or stood me up on our meeting, leads me to think that the offer was not really that appealing to them. What is more, four of the participants even refused to receive the money after the interview by stating that they did not participate in the research because of the money, but because they were willing to help.
19
FINDINGS
During the interviews, the participants were invited to (re)build and reflect on their history as delivery men. The outcome of this exercise will be presented herein, seeking to be as faithful as possible to the interviewees’ narrative. The chapter begins by introducing the participants and the study area, followed by presenting the data gathered during the interviews. Namely the interviewees addressed four subjects: scouring the neighborhood, the neighborhood, the people in the neighborhood and working in the neighborhood. In this chapter, their perspective regarding each one of these four subjects is explained supported by quotes from the interviews. With the purpose of maintaining nuances of the language and of the way in which the participants expressed themselves, all the quotes are in Spanish. A translation of every quote can be found in appendix D, and, when needed, an explanation of the terms used by the participants is provided on a footnote.
THE PARTICIPANTS AND THE STUDY AREA
As mentioned before, during the five weeks of field work, 14 in-depth interviews were conducted with delivery men who work on the study area. The way in which the participants were recruited was already explained in the methodology chapter. Even though all the participants work for businesses located in the Santa Bárbara neighborhood, each delivery service covers a different area; thus, it is difficult to establish the exact geographical borders of the study area. Still, on the aggregate the area in which the interviewees deliver products goes from the Calle 100 on the south, to the Calle 156 on the north, and, from the Autopista Norte on the west towards Bogotá’s natural geographical border on the east, a chain of mountains known as Cerros Orientales (see Map No. 2, appendix C). This area assembles housing units categorized under strata four to six.
Be that as it may, this information is provided only with the intention of helping the reader to locate the study area. Its exact geographical borders should not be considered as fixed, rigid and/or continuous. The ideas of the authors reviewed in the conceptual framework claim for a symbolic perspective in which places are seen as a dynamic dimension; thus, the borders of the study area can be different for each one of the participants. That is to say, the size, the limits and the shape of the study area are established by the image each one of the delivery men have of it, and these do not necessarily correspond with the geographical area covered by the delivery service they provide. With this in mind, the data that is presented in the following sections speaks of a place that either contains or is contained in the area showed in map No. 2 (see appendix C), a place that will be henceforth called the neighborhood.
The participants live in 10 out of the 19 localities that make up Bogotá (see map No. 3, appendix C). These areas are categorized as stratum one, two or three, which means that the housing units that make them up are different in terms of forms of construction and access to public utilities (Law 142 of 1994). Thus, on a daily basis, the participants cross many of the different areas of the city and have the opportunity to see the changes within and between neighborhoods. In fact, most of them go through areas belonging to the different strata of the spectrum, and all of them go through at least strata three to six areas (see Map No. 3, appendix C).
20 The participants’ basic information is provided in Table No. 1. Roughly, they are all male, between 20 and 45 years of age, they live in areas classified as stratum one, two or three, and, most of them (10 out of 14) have finished high school and were not born in Bogotá.
Table No. 1: The participants
IDENTITY OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Scouring the neighborhood
Delivery meniv, like many of their fellow citizens, did not choose their work, they were chosen
by it instead. In the middle of a job search, usually thanks to an acquaintance, their current job appeared as an option that could help them cover their living expenses. Despite being a matter of chance, delivery services assembles a group of people who enjoy working outdoors, who prefer working without a rigid routine and who like exploring and getting to know new places and new people. That would be how they describe themselves or, to be more precise, the requirements someone needs to fulfill if he wants to work as a delivery man.
Y este entorno de lo que es mensajería todos los días tú conoces una persona diferente, sea el señor buena gente, sea el señor que te hace mala cara, sea la niña bonita o sea como sea […] una infinidad de cosas que uno ve que como que uno va cambiando y eso lo motiva a uno a seguir. A mí me motiva mucho eso.1
(Harold, personal communication, April 1, 2014) Delivering orders, however, involves more than transporting packages to specific destinations. The successful completion of the assigned task implies a series of preliminary and interim decisions, which usually require a detailed knowledge of the working area. In particular, learning and mastering the road network system of Bogotá, as well as being able to foresee and face the possible risks in the route, are necessary skills that any delivery man both develops while working and needs in order to be successful.
iii For the purpose of this document, all the names of the participants were changed.
ivIn order to avoid any confusion, any further reference to delivery men in this chapter means the research
participants; thus, it does not encompass all delivery men who work in Bogotá.
Nameiii Age Residence locality Stratum Education level Works in
Andrew 28 Mártires 3 10th grade Corner shop
Barry 24 Ciudad Bolívar 1 10th grade Market
Charles 35 Engativá 3 NR Fast food Edward 20 Usaquén 2 9th grade Corner shop
Fidel 45 Bosa 1 High school Restaurant Fred 40 Usme 1 Technical education Restaurant Harold 34 Usme 1 High school Fast food Hector 29 Suba 3 High school Fast food Isaac 35 Bosa 2 Technical education Fast food John 40 Usme 1 High school Restaurant Jeffrey 25 Barrios Unidos 3 High school Fast food Malcolm 28 San Cristóbal 2 High school Bakery Nelson 40 Usaquén 2 High school Restaurant William 45 Puente Aranda 3 High school Bakery
21 Bogotá’s street address system
follows a grid design comprising five categories of streets. As shown in Figure No. 1, Calles run from east to west, Diagonales also run in this direction although they are not straight, but slightly inclined either towards the north or the south. Carreras run from north to south, and Transversales run in the same direction, but they are slightly inclined either to the east or the west. The remaining street type, called Avenidas, identifies the main streets,
which can run in any of the directions followed by the other four types of streets. Addresses in Bogotá are composed by three parts; first, the type of street in which the designated place is located; second, the nearest type of crossing street with the lowest number; and third, the distance to the intersection of the previous mentioned streets. Thus, for example, the address of the building shown in Figure No. 1 would be: Calle 120 # 11-45. Which means the entrance of the building is located on the Calle 120, the nearest perpendicular street with the lowest number is Carrera 11, and the entrance of the building is located 45 meters away from the intersection between the Calle 120 and the Carrera 11.
Although the entire city is supposed to be organized following the grid system, the participants mentioned learning about it while working as delivery men. In fact, most of them recognized this to be the main challenge when they first started working in the delivery service. When orders are ready to leave the store, delivery men receive the package, the receipt and the destination address. They are expected to deliver the order as fast as they can, in some cases they even have a maximum amount of time based on which their performance is later assessed. Thus, at the beginning, when they have not learnt how the street address system works, it is difficult for them to move around the city and fulfill the expected delivery time goals.
Porque no tenía la experiencia, la verdad no tenía la experiencia, yo le dije eso a la psicóloga pero en verdad yo no tenía la experiencia suficiente para entregar un domicilio. ¿Qué es entregar un domicilio? No sólo llevarlo porque si yo te digo, te boto una dirección en voleo, hablamos de calle 116 #50-20, tienes que saber a dónde queda eso, saberse orientar. Entonces al principio pues me daba temor, eh, ubicar más que todo las direcciones.2
(Nelson, personal communication, April 15, 2014) Delivery men transfer their acquired knowledge to their new peers. Thus, when a new delivery man enters the business his coworkers will explain to him how the system works, and they will also help him plan the route before delivering the orders he is in charge of. Charles, for example, mentioned that when someone new starts working in the fast food restaurant where he works, while he learns to locate the addresses he gets to deliver those orders that are closer to the business. With time, as the result of the learning by doing experience, delivery men end up mastering the street address system. In fact, in their milieu, where the system does not seem to
22 be used, their knowledge is acknowledged by their friends, family and other acquaintances. As an illustration, Barry mentioned that since his brother started working in the area as an electrician, he has been helping him to locate the addresses where he needs to go work.
Entonces lo mandan por allá, entonces él me llama y me dice: “Eh, ¿dónde queda tal cosa?”. […] [Barry
asks his brother] “¿Cómo es la dirección?”. [Barry’s brother answers] “Tan tan tan”. Entonces ya yo los
ubico pues más o menos. Obviamente ya los ubico pues más o menos. Antes me preguntan. No y ya. Conocí ya, pues gracias a esto conozco ya más el norte, me dicen cualquier dirección y ya pues uno se ubica mejor. Pero antes no, no sabía nada.3
(Barry, personal communication, March 31, 2014) However, mastering the street address system is not enough to be a successful delivery man. In addition, they are required to foresee and overcome the risks they may encounter in the streets, such as having an accident, getting a ticket from the police and/or getting the motorbike stolen. These events would not only imply that the order does not get to its destination (on time), but, in some cases they also entail getting injured and/or having extra expenditures. In fact, those who cannot foresee these risks or who do not feel capable of preventing and/or facing them usually quit.
All in all, a good delivery man is one who, having learned how the grid street address system works, has a mental map of the city (or at least of his working area) on which he superimposes other layers such as traffic, red lights, construction works, and so on. This delivery man, with a planned route in mind, is also agile enough to readjust the route when needed or to overcome any possible risks while driving. Isaac, who says proudly that he has always occupied one of the first five positions in the delivery ranking of the fast food chain in which he works, shared the secret of success:
[O]sea, no es que sea rápido sino, yo muchas veces digo que el que sea rápido en una moto no es muchas veces el que más corre, sino el que como que busca las calles más vacías, los atajos, el que se sabe los atajos, el que se sabe por dónde hay una manifestación o algo, una ciclovíav o dónde se forma
el trancón o por dónde se forman menos semáforos, todo eso es tiempo.4
(Isaac, personal communication, April 15, 2014)
The neighborhood
Every morning delivery men leave their homes located in 10 out of the 19 localities that make up Bogotá (see map No. 3, appendix C). Although they all have different starting points, they have a common destination: the top of an architectural mountain which seems to materialize the socioeconomic differences among the population of the city. In their dwelling areas people live mostly in houses, whereas in the areas inhabited by individuals with a better socioeconomic position (such as the one in which they work), apartment buildings are the preferred housing unit design form. The architectural landscape of their going-to-work path then, starts with short constructions and, as they move away from their residence and approach their workplace, the structures continuously change their shape and height passing from short houses to tall apartment buildings. All in all, metaphorically speaking, every morning delivery men go along a climbing path towards the area of apartment buildings in which they work (for a drawing of their descriptions regarding the architectural forms see map No. 4, appendix C).
v Ciclovía is the name of a public event that takes place every Sunday in Bogotá, from 7:00 to 14:00 hours. Cars, buses
23 Entonces va como, por ejemplo, en el norte tú ves mucho edificio. En el centro tú vas bajando ves menos edificio. Ya en el sur, lógicamente, no vas a ver mucho edificio.5
(Malcolm, personal communication, April 16, 2014) In fact, according to delivery men, apartment buildings are the preferred housing unit design of the upper class in Bogotá. The urban development of the areas inhabited by this group of the population usually involves demolishing old houses and constructing apartment buildings in their place, a process that is still possible to identify in the interviewees’ working locality. In the following quote, for instance, Nelson, who lives in the Usaquén locality, depicted his dwelling area as a lower strata neighborhood surrounded by apartment buildings inhabited by people with a better socioeconomic position than him.
Yo estoy en la zona de las casas. Pero llegaron los edificios y miras alrededor y lo que hay es edificios de 10, 12, 15 pisos. Pero yo estoy en barrio popular, casas de promedio tres pisos, de medidas de 7x20. […] Dos, apuntando a tres, pero alrededor lo que es edificios son cuatro, tres y cuatro. Sí, porque es un estrato un poquito más alto. Estamos rodeados de los ricos.6
(Nelson, personal communication, April 15, 2014) Adding to the contrast between the preferred housing unit design, once they enter the apartment buildings area, delivery men find a place that is entirely different to the one in which they live. In particular, they perceive contrasts regarding four aspects: public infrastructure, nature, access to goods and services, and security measures.
When riding a motorbike on a daily basis, as most of the interviewees claimed, the streets become the main focus of attention. Therefore, changes in their characteristics can inform the driver about an area shift. In contrast with their dwelling neighborhoods, the participants noticed that where they work streets are paved, they have traffic signs and pedestrians have sidewalks to walk on.
The presence of naturevi is another of the aspects that delivery men identified as characteristic
of their working area, compared to the other neighborhoods of the city, especially regarding the ones in which they live. In their descriptions they addressed mainly two subjects. First, they argued that where they work it is possible to find not only more public parks, but that they are also in better conditions.
Eh, de pronto es como, pues como vivo en el sur. En el norte sí se cuida mucho lo que son los parques, en cuestión de que digamos, usted en el sur un parque es para meter vicio y para que saquen los perros a cagar, o sea y no limpian, ¿sí? […] En el norte se ven más árboles, se ven más zonas verdes, se ven parques mejores cuidados. Por lo menos el parque del Country, ese parque si, ¡Dios mío parece como si no fuera parque! [He laughs] Cierto. Uno dice: Juepuecha hubiera un parque así para los pobres.7
(Isaac, personal communication, April 15, 2014) Second, they stressed that in their working area nature is usually integrated to the different constructions, in both public or private areas. As an illustration, in the following quote, while describing how the inhabitants of the neighborhood decorate the area for Christmas, Jeffrey highlighted the fact that every building has its own lawn and tree(s).
vi Here nature is used as a term that includes green areas and the presence of nature (trees, cascades, rivers, etc.)
