AUTOR: Santiago Vejar
Architect specialized in Urban Planning and O.T. Writer, founder of ARQritic and Taller de Vivienda Evolutiva - TAVE
We find politics in every individual or collective decision taken, including those given in the construction of the regime that contains them, decisions that, one on top of the other, create the model of society in which we participate.
In turn, it is undeniable that every decision, however small it may be, is based on the material relationship of the subject with the elements that accompany him in his inhabitation of the world, and under the assumption that every decision is in fair measure the product of an exhortation given by the physical environment, we must ask ourselves how the “transformed” physical environment affects individual and collective choices?
This exhortation of the physical world and the sum of the elements that we find in it models the thought process and produces changes in the perception of the objects with which we interact and with it, of human activities and chores, an example of this is political participation, which we will analyze, and what better way to do it than by analyzing the physical infrastructure itself, the seat of government power, the municipal palace, which in this case will be subject to analysis in the cities of Sahuayo and Jiquilpan, Michoacán.
Sahuayo and Jiquilpan are two cities in the Ciénega region of the State of Michoacán de Ocampo, Mexico; with such marked social differences that have resulted in territorial problems that have diminished their twinned growth. From the origin of their settlements of different cultures until today where governments with different political stances administer them, center-left in Jiquilpan and center-right in Sahuayo for the period 2021-2024.
But let's talk more about its population today. Sahuayo centers its culture in the religious tradition with festivities in honor of the apostle Santiago or the martyr San Jose Sanchez del Rio, this attachment to religion is an attitude that reveals the tacit conservative stance of its society, added to this we find its commercial aptitude achieved with the passage of time becoming a city offering services with an important economic development for the Cienega region.
Jiquilpan, for its part, has a political past that, for better or worse, has maintained its identity. Cardenism put the population in the public eye. Among its festivities are March 18, the day of the oil expropriation, and November 20, the day of the Mexican Revolution, festivities centered on events of national public life, and although there are religious traditions, these are not as well known as those of Sahuayo.
In addition to this series of conditioning factors that surround the social ethos and to which must be added the economic, social, educational and other conditions specific to each population that place them at political extremes, we note further evidence of how material conditions shape the behavior of communities in political practice, which is the subject of this paper, The interest with which these two societies get involved in political-administrative matters is influenced, according to our observations, by the perception promoted by the location of the infrastructure of their governmental power with respect to areas of affluence or community gathering where precisely the social fabric is strengthened.
While in Jiquilpan the municipal presidency is located near the municipal market and the main square -areas of high affluence where social dynamics arise that appeal to a biological need such as food or recreation- and its architecture blends in with the immediate surroundings as are many constructions typical of a “Pueblo Mágico”, in Sahuayo, on the other hand, this building is an isolated element of society, eventually moving from being on one side of the main square to being far from important areas of affluence and being located in a rather liminal space, transitional, fenced and limited to access; its architecture imposes presence and has all the perceptual elements that cause in the subject and society the idea that involvement in political affairs is alien to them and difficult to access.
In Jiquilpan this infrastructure is closer to society, whoever passes through its portal does so both to reach and enter its facilities as well as sporadically and obligatorily to reach nearby facilities. In Sahuayo, if you pass by this building it is to get to it or around it, the infrastructure does not embrace society, but distances it and positions it as a spectator. the demos away from the Kratos.
Every aspect of a society is revealed to the physical world through materializing actions that come from behavior and likewise, the physical world exhorts the subject and his community a certain behavior, undoubtedly leaving us a teaching, infrastructure creates culture.