Street, body and gender. Identity as a process in Mexico City.

Abstract

The streets in the City are not just made up of concrete and asphalt; its constitution is a symbolic one as well, made voluntarily and unwittingly, individually and jointly by interactions taking place there. Mexico City’s streets are social, negotiated and changing spaces, where identities rise, take form and change. Using symbolic interactionism as a theoretical and methodological framework, this paper offers elements to analyze identity processes in every day city life, and its mutual determination to the social frames of body and gender.