Social Representations on the Zocalo of Mexico City as a Place for the Protest. Ethnographic Study in the Context of the Elections of 2009

Abstract

This work approaches to the topic of the protests in the Zócalo of the Mexico City in 2009, as a naturalized practice and that acquires located meanings, respect of what represents this scene, for the social movements that demonstrate there. From 1968, with the protests of the university students and his irruption in the Zócalo, a new culture of the protest arises and, with it, new social representations emerge with regard to this place. Some of them are kept and gather strength, others transform giving step to the emergency of new representations. The Zócalo of the Mexico City already would be inconceivable without the presence of groups protesting there. Nevertheless, and though this type of practices manage to be naturalized, some questions arise on, Why to protest in the Zócalo? Is it effective in the resolution of demands? What does it represent for the groups that use and frequent it? To answer questioning these, the theoretical and methodological way was to study the protest from the theory of the social representations as category to deal, what represents this space of the city for the citizens who use it to protest.