Producing Mayaland (eBook)

Claudia Fonseca Alfaro holds a PhD in Urban Studies and is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Urban Research (IUR) at Malmö University. A postcolonial and critical scholar, her research explores how global capitalism and urbanization unfold at the local level in the inconspicuous places of the global South.

Series Editors' Preface vi

List of Abbreviations vii

List of Figures and Table ix

Acknowledgements xi

1 Introduction 1

2 Postcolonizing Lefebvre? 30

3 Maquiladora Paradise 47

4 The Magical Maya 77

5 The Zone 103

6 The Maquila Leftovers 125

7 Understanding the Urban in/from Yucatán 168

8 Living with the Maquila 179

9 Conclusion 209

Bibliography 221

Index 250

'Producing Mayaland powerfully captures the extent to which the abstract spaces of global capital are infused with colonial fantasies, haunted by uncanny ruins, and plagued by monstrous manifestations of ecological breakdown. Through a compelling account of the maquiladora industry in the Yucatan Peninsula, Claudia Fonseca Alfaro vividly conveys the inextricable entanglements of the capitalist production of space and the coloniality of power.'
Japhy Wilson, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

'In Producing Mayaland, Claudia Fonseca Alfaro finds a unique voice to narrate the contested relations between everyday life, urbanization and the uneven development of capitalism in Motul, Yucatán, Mexico. The remarkable insights of this work emerge from her innovative synthesis of critical urban theory, anticolonialism and 'magical realism'--all grounded in an imaginative appropriation of Henri Lefebvre's oeuvre on the production of space.'
Kanishka Goonewardena, Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto

'Producing Mayaland powerfully captures the extent to which the abstract spaces of global capital are infused with colonial fantasies, haunted by uncanny ruins, and plagued by monstrous manifestations of ecological breakdown. Through a compelling account of the maquiladora industry in the Yucatan Peninsula, Claudia Fonseca Alfaro vividly conveys the inextricable entanglements of the capitalist production of space and the coloniality of power.'
Japhy Wilson, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

'In Producing Mayaland, Claudia Fonseca Alfaro finds a unique voice to narrate the contested relations between everyday life, urbanization and the uneven development of capitalism in Motul, Yucatán, Mexico. The remarkable insights of this work emerge from her innovative synthesis of critical urban theory, anticolonialism and 'magical realism'--all grounded in an imaginative appropriation of Henri Lefebvre's oeuvre on the production of space.'
Kanishka Goonewardena, Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto