So they are, so they imagine themselves, or so we imagine them? Reflections on the socio-territorial transformations of residential tourism in Malinalco, México

Abstract

Both physical and symbolic spatial transformations attributed to residential tourism are correlative to sensations, thoughts, feelings and the belief of the actors involved; thereby, studies of the phenomenon should take them into account. The paper is based on an epistemological approach that emphasizes subjectivity, not only in the experience of a rural landscape, but also in its instrumentality. In Malinalco, the latter is led and driven by a wealthy set of actors whose behavior confesses a habitus (Bourdieu), which is approximated in this paper with qualitative methods. The imagery of that group includes Í€œhaciendaÍ€ as a representation of rurality, and ostentation as a political power and status symbol. Meanwhile, modernity and postmodernity shape their peripheries, which become embedded in the town.