A Comparative Analysis Of Gary Richardson's Barrio Chino In Costalo

The approaches to this kind of research are various and involve a wide methodological spectrum of which I will give here only few examples. Richardson (2003) made his fieldwork in Costarica, where he described the reactions of people to different usage of a square (the plaza) which is weekly used as public marketplace (the market). Richardson starts his reflections from Heidegger concept of being-in-the-world, in order to understand how people react to different cultural, material and spatial environments, the above-mentioned market and the plaza. He stresses out that “during the course of their interaction with the material setting and with each other, people respond to the material setting by incorporating in preliminary definition into their
The author is able to reconstruct the way which the bad reputation of the Chinese district and of its bars in Barcelona has been created through a progressive political and social marginalization, but also through the storytelling about this place. Much of this imagery is constructed from outside the barrio by the urban bourgeoisie who generalize from the reputations of certain specialty bars rather than common neighborhood bars which serve as social centers for local residents. “The “myth” of the bars barrio chino became part of the interplay of cultural stereotypes that confirm the political, economic, and social marginalization of the area and its inhabitants. Indeed, as landmarks in the human symbolic geography of Barcelona, barrio chino bars appear to have become causes rather than attributes of marginality”
Gow, analyzing the relationships between the Piro in the Amazonian Peru and the forest, affirms that what the Piro see when they look at the land is kinship. They refer to a specific – visible - place linking it with those who inhabit or cultivated it. Their world is close as their memories of their relatives and ancestors. An important social role, is here played by the shaman, who is considered as an agent, as a contact with the invisible lands. Toren made research about how Christianity and capitalism make changes in the Fijian concept of space and in the way they feel their place, their land. According to her, the horizons and the spatiality of the village has been expanded to encompass both State and Christianity ideology, but changes are felt by local people “in the way of kinship”, in “the way of the chiefs” and “in the way of the land”. Of course in this process of assimilation a central role is played by the process of