Désirée Rochat’s visit to TRYSPACES Mexico

News

26 March 2019

During the week of October 29th to November 3rd in 2018,  TRYSPACES members, especially those working on the case study of “The Street Market of El Chopo”, had the opportunity to share with Désirée Rochat. Désirée is a doctoral student in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University and her work focuses on memory, oral history, popular education, and participatory archives.

She gave two public lectures at the Geography Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), “Circulatory Territories. The Haitian Diaspora through History” and “Research Methodologies with Community Archives and Popular Education”. She offered research tools based on popular education approaches and community archives. She also presented a reflection on Haitian migration to Montreal, Canada, and the political processes of Central American Dyasporica migration.  

Désirée Rochat’s visit aimed to contribute to the methodological planning of the living labs of the “El Chopo” case study. She participated in two collective talks with members and founders of the Street Market and with the Civil Association of Tianguis Cultural del Chopo (TCC), on October 29 and 31, 2018.  These meetings took place in the Vasconcelos Library and approached different cases of community archives and collective memory reconstruction.

Based on Désirée’s contributions, designed of the workshops on the collective memory of “El Chopo” street market and was decided to produce a book and a web page. Desirée also visited Tianguis Cultural del Chopo on the 3rd of November in 2018.   

Désirée Rochat’s participation contributed to the methodological dialogue between the members of Tryspaces Mexico by sharing knowledge on popular education and migration at the Institute of Geography and the Vasconcelos Library, with the academic community and with civic organizations in Mexico City. Finally, Désirée’s view contributed to Tryspaces’ efforts to consolidate networks and promote collaborative research in local spaces. 

CASE STUDIES

Los chavos, las chavas and El Chopo

mexico

El Chopo is a punk-rock street market located just north of the historical center. This countercultural space began operating in the 1980s. Since then, every Saturday vendors take to the…