The desert as territorial representation of Mexico’s North

• Main Authors: Enrique Rajchenberg, Catherine Héau-Lambert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Estadual de Londrina 2012-08-01
• Series: Antíteses
• Subjects: Norte de México; Frontera; Desierto; Representación territorial
• Online Access: http://www.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/antiteses/article/view/12924

The northern region of Mexico presented a challenge for colonization since colonial times, both because of its physical features and for its indiegenous inhabitants. Is because of the former that the representations crafted in the central part of the country about the North always referred it as a dangerous, fearsome desert. For the US inhabitants, who wanted that same territory since the beginning of the XIX century, its inhabitants were the personified racial degeneration.</p> <p>This article analyses this two-sided architecture of the territorial representations with which the North of Mexico was symbolized during the XIX century, and that is still reproduced nowadays.</p>