Emplaced en route: Multi-sensory perspectives on the city on the move

This paper explores the movement and positioning of bodies in urbanizing landscapes. In particular, it looks at the perspectives on the city that are born out of the sensory experiences of such movement and positioning. What urban, peri-urban or non-urban imaginaries are both derived from and attached to the environment in which these bodies are emplaced en route?

To answer this question, the paper draws on fieldwork in and around the neighborhood of Sierra Hermosa in Tecamac, State of Mexico, in the northern continuum of the metropolitan area of Mexico City. Bus rides and waiting time at informal bus stops, street vending activities and the daily walks to and from the school and to the market are carefully examined in relation to their inherent bodily, multi-sensory ways of perceiving and operating in socio-material peri-urban space.