Resumen de The towns of the Popocateptl Volcano: Territorial symbolism, cultural identity and vernacular architecture
This paper addresses the link between territory and identity from a cultural geography perspective. Small villages that lie in the Popocatépetl Volcano in central Mexico are used as cases of study. The paper is based upon natural and social features as well as in the meaning and symbolism that underlies the attachment of the people of the Volcano villages to this place. It is supported by the results of field research carried out over three years in two villages where university students, me as professor and local people joined together. The methodology utilized for the research was basically a hermeneutical approach to interpret the socio cultural changes of the analyzed regions over the last two decades. In addition, to carry out field work an ethnographical approach was used to describe, analyze and try to understand the changes that the rural communities of the Popocateptl region are going through. The significance that ancestral territories hold for ethnic groups, as well as their attachment to these territories explain the concept of anchoring collective memory. Streets, trails, complementary spaces and elements of daily community life such as orchards and barns, hold historical identity for these people. However, governmental policies, real estate and housing, market interests and the business mechanisms of the cement companies have disrupted the local quality of life together with both the tangible and intangible architectonic and urban historical elements that were present two decades ago in the Popocateptl Volcano region. Only a few decades have sufficed for the globalization interests disguised as progress, to make local people abandon their ancestral knowledge of building dwellings and how to compose their public spaces. All this has been detrimental to the region’s natural resources leading to a loss of balance between human space and nature.
