Fascinated by the varying uses of public space, Visual Anthropologist Paola Frances Garnica and I documented the use of a particular street in Mexico City. Looking at Filadelfia Street in the area Benito Juarez, we explored how the stability of the street can guide people's actions (for example, where there is a chair I will …
Fighting Impunity in Mexico – An interview with John Ralston Saul (PEN Canada)
Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist or writer. Since 2006, over 46 Mexican journalists and writers have been killed or disappeared, and their lives continue to be threatened. As a result, many journalists and media outlets have opted to sensor themselves and have stopped reporting on …
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Oaxaca’s Diversity at Odds with Mexico’s Education Reforms
Last week, students of Oaxaca, Mexico protested the new education reforms recently passed by Mexico’s new president Enrique Pena Nieto. President Nieto has been very busy lately enacting new reforms. Many international media have been hailing the education reforms as being a positive thing for the country, since Mexico’s public school system is largely seen …
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Lucha Libre – Theatre, Sport or Critique of Capitalism?
Every Tuesday evening a group of men gather together to put on tight spandex pants, form fitting masks, bright capes, and in some cases lather themselves with oil and enter a ring to try to pin each other down for three seconds. Welcome to Mexican Wrestling, known in Spanish as Lucha Libre. Lucha Libre differs …
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Love, Loss and the Mexican Border
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) The bus was more full than all the other transit I had taken so far. We were on our way from San Antonio, Texas down to Mexico. I was feeling anxious because I felt that I didn’t have space …
Austin at a Glance
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) I woke up on a Texan’s couch in Austin at 10:00 am to these words: “You ready for some bar-b-q?” We arrived in the line up at Franklin’s Barbecue at 11:00 where a staff member told us that we …
Tales from the Dining Car. Chapter 2.
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) About half way through Missouri a whole new set of heads emerged in the dinning car. That’s when I met Buzz. Buzz was sitting with a man that he clearly just met. Much like the Texan earlier, Buzz was …
Tales from the Dining Car. Chapter 1.
(From my 'travel blog' series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) He had shaggy blond hair that flowed out of his cowboy hat and piercing blue eyes. He was clean-shaven, had a slender built and couldn’t have been older than 25. He wore a stripped shirt that he tucked into …
Twenty-four hours in Detroit 🔊
(From my ‘travel blog’ series, documenting by trip from Toronto, Canada to Mexico City by land.) They call it the People Mover, Detroit’s automated transit system that moves above ground on a single set of tracks. It's a lot like Vancouver’s SkyTrain, but Detroit's People Mover is less of a convenient mode of public transportation …