Contact Zones of the Porfirian Modernization. Mexico-City Police Magazines

Abstract

The study revisits the debates over the modernization in Latin America by examining police formation in Mexico City during the Porfiriato. To this end, it takes a historical-pragmatic approach that allows tracing the modes of production of two magazines of the Gendarmería Municipal, their exchanges with the urban press and discourses on police work and institution. Starting from the premise that these magazines articulated contact zones between unequal forms of knowledge, the study reveals the paradoxes of police formation and its dialectic with fin-de-siècle  modernization. Thus, the analysis contributes to police studies in Mexico and complicates the narrative over the configuration of modern orders in Latin America.