Dances and music are put on to celebrate Mothers’ Day. Here they are rehearsing a performance with music from Northern Mexico (Sofia, housewife, Loma Bonita).

The research aim of this project is to explore how residents’ place-making activities contribute to the development of urban informal settlements. Looking at how residents individually and collectively shape their environment, the relationship between these activities and development of the settlement as a material and social place is examined. The research setting is Xalapa, a medium-sized city in Mexico.

About fifty per cent of Xalapa’s residents live in areas with informal origins. Colonia Loma Bonita is a relatively new informal neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city. Founded eight years ago on land formerly used to cultivate sugar cane, it is one hour away from the city centre by bus and has no basic services.

Colonia Moctezuma is an older neighbourhood which originated fifteen years ago through the sale of unserviced plots on land donated by the state government. It is now quite developed, with basic services such as electricity and sewage, as well as community facilities such as primary schools. 

Given the emphasis on residents’ perspectives of place, participatory methods were employed to better understand these perspectives. Such methods, if unlikely to truly empower participants, at least aim to give them greater control over research agenda, process and results. Solicited photography offers an alternative descriptive method to language, and gives insight into participants’ perceptual observations (Dodman 2003). Residents from both neighbourhoods were asked to use disposable cameras to take photos of people, places and things in the neighbourhood. After the photos were developed, the participant was interviewed about them, either in person or by email.

Solicited photography gives insight into perceptions which the researcher may not otherwise be able to access. This derives partly from photography’s ability to access the emotional perspective of participants, through visual imagery (Thomas 2007). Solicited photography offered a different way of thinking about and capturing concepts which were difficult to talk about in interview, such as place identity and meaning.  

The meanings attached to images are constructed through a range of social processes, imbued with power relations (Rose 1996). These images, produced and interpreted by people who know and live in a place, differ from images produced and interpreted by others.

Photos of informal neighbourhoods often show poverty and hardship at the expense of other elements of a place, reflecting the different production of images by residents and ‘outsiders’. These images may contribute to outsider perceptions of a place, such as these impressions of Loma Bonita:

• ‘It’s known round there for people who are a bit bad, vandals, abusive people’ (resident of central Xalapa).
• ‘There’s no drinking water, there’s no sewage, there’s no schools, there’s no churches, there’s no sportsgrounds, nothing, absolutely nothing’ (community leader, neighbouring rural community).

In contrast to these negative perceptions, the images shown here convey a sense of everyday life taking place, amid hope and conviviality, as well as struggle and hardship. They reveal the complexity of a place, perhaps more successfully than an outsider’s images could. Using solicited photography also raises other interesting questions, including how the involvement of the researcher influences the images, the value of analysing photos individually versus collectively, and the issue of image quality and error, which are sometimes unintentionally revealing in themselves.


The path behind the house, with the neighbour’s little house in the background – people use it often, to get the bus sometimes from the other colonia [Las Guarniciones, which is paved unlike Loma Bonita] (Belicia, housewife, Loma Bonita).

This is my neighbour, using the land to sow some crops – maize, to feed his family. They can make tortillas, sell the crop or consume it (Sofia, housewife, Loma Bonita).

These are ‘chicharrones’, something typical, and this is the family eating – tortilla, pico de gallo, pork in salsa verde (Beatriz and Gracia, teenage residents, Loma Bonita).

This is a tradition observed daily in Mexico: people pay honours to the Virgin of Guadalupe [Mexican icon]. This is an altar with offerings. The chapel was constructed collectively, by residents and others. We say rosary and mass here (Sofia, housewife, Loma Bonita).

Residents constructed the kindergarten with support from the Mayor of Xalapa, two years ago (Sofia, housewife, Loma Bonita).

Every Saturday a pig is killed, and we eat pork. Lots of families do it and they sell the meat, or invite others to eat (Beatriz and Gracia, teenage residents, Loma Bonita).

This was a mistake, we were trying to take photos of drinks, soft drinks – the ones that are drunk a lot here (Beatriz and Gracia, teenage residents, Loma Bonita).

 Colonia Moctezuma

This is a green area – a park beside Telmex [telephone exchange] for children. It hasn’t been done very well, it’s provisional. It’s being used but it’s not finished. They need to plan it properly, and fill in the ditch (Adriana, university administrator and Teresa, pensioner, Moctezuma).

These people invaded a place which didn’t belong to them and which was already designated for the construction of a health centre which we really need. They are extremely aggressive people (precisely because of their illegal status) and let me tell you, I risked my life entering that zone, ha ha ha. Unfortunately in the colonia we are at risk of this type of invasion and abuse of authority, since up to now they haven’t been removed, as the elections are coming and votes are needed (Olivia, teenage resident, Moctezuma).

The main street, which is going to be paved (Adriana, university administrator and Teresa, pensioner, Moctezuma).

Young people in Moctezuma; no comments available (Flor, housewife, Moctezuma).



People here don’t seem to have any awareness of hygiene. Lots of them use the excuse that they are poor, but it’s been seen and proven that even people with scarce resources can make an effort. It’s not just about looking nice, but that the colonia should be clean and for that it needs more that just paving (Olivia, teenage resident, Moctezuma).

Primary school in Moctezuma; no comments available (Feliza, housewife, Moctezuma).