Speaker: Dr. Heriberto Ruiz Tafoya, Associate Professor in Political Management and Emerging Markets, ENES Juriquilla (UNAM).
About the talk:
Mexico City, home to over 21 million residents, stands as a major socio-cultural hub marked by the economic contradictions of cosmopolitan capitalism. Financial districts, real estate speculation, inequality, informality, and marginalization shape a landscape of stagnation and vulnerability for diverse social groups—including the homeless, undocumented immigrants, displaced Indigenous communities, single mothers, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals.
This complex terrain gives rise to what can be described as spectral vulnerability: a condition perceived by impoverished populations living on the city’s periphery. Their sense of threat is amplified by media-driven narratives that sensationalize poverty and violence, as well as by their own lived experiences of abuse and precarity—whether in workplaces or neighborhoods.
To illustrate this concept, the presentation will examine household conditions in peripheral communities such as Chimalhuacán, Valle de Chalco, and La Paz in the State of Mexico.
About the speaker:
Dr. Ruiz Tafoya holds a PhD in Economics from Kyoto University, with postgraduate studies in the UK and Japan. His research focuses on the political economy of food and poverty in the Global South.
