The City at Its Limits: Taboo, Transgression, and Urban Renewal in LimaIn 1996, against the backdrop of Alberto Fujimori’s increasingly corrupt national politics, an older woman in Lima, Peru—part of a group of women street sweepers protesting the privatization of the city’s cleaning services—stripped to the waist in full view of the crowd that surrounded her. Lima had just launched a campaign to revitalize its historic districts, and this shockingly transgressive act was just one of a series of events that challenged the norms of order, cleanliness, and beauty that the renewal effort promoted. The City at Its Limits employs a novel and fluid interweaving of essays and field diary entries as Daniella Gandolfo analyzes the ramifications of this act within the city’s conflicted history and across its class divisions. She builds on the work of Georges Bataille to explore the relation between taboo and transgression, while Peruvian novelist and anthropologist José María Arguedas’s writings inspire her to reflect on her return to her native city in movingly intimate detail. With its multiple perspectives—personal, sociological, historical, and theoretical—The City at Its Limits is a pioneering work on the cutting edge of ethnography. |
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The City at Its Limits: Taboo, Transgression, and Urban Renewal in Lima Daniella Gandolfo Limited preview - 2009 |
The City at Its Limits: Taboo, Transgression, and Urban Renewal in Lima Daniella Gandolfo No preview available - 2009 |
The City at Its Limits: Taboo, Transgression, and Urban Renewal in Lima Daniella Gandolfo No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
Abimael Guzmán Accursed Share Andrade Andrade's animal asked Avenida baroque baroque art barriadas Bataille Bataille's beauty block body building bull bullfighting burials called Cementerio cemetery Chorrillos churches Cicciolina city center city's clothes colonial corpse corruption criollo culture Cuzco dead death door downtown Lima dress El Cercado ESMLL eyes father feeling force front Fujimori garbage Gómez hand Héctor human Ibid idea Inca indigenous inside Jirón Kayapo Lima Lima's Limeños living looked Manolo María matador Matos Mar mayor meaning mestizo Miraflores Morales morgue morning mother municipal naked nakedness never nudity Peru plaza police policía political protest recuperation refers República Rímac Rímac River ritual Señora Roberta SITRAMUN social society Spanish stopped street sweepers stripping taboo talk Tamayo things thought tion transgression Túpac Amaru II turned Unanue urban Vulture-man walked walls window woman women workers writes