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This article explores how indigenous migrants experience the sociopolitical and existential condition of “illegality” in the United States. Drawing on the experiences of Maya migrants from Yucat´an, Mexico, in the San Francisco Bay Area, I argue that the specter of state surveillance and the threat of law enforcement produce a particular politics of (im)mobility for indigenous migrants. This local politics of mobility takes form through spatial tactics of invisibility and visibility. Tracing migrants’ tactical maneuvers through public space, I show how their relations to space, place, and movement alter cultural sensibilities of tranquilidad (tranquility), and further instantiate “illegality” as a site of exclusion. This analysis of the experiential effects of anticipated surveillance provides a deeper understanding of the power of the state to enforce migrant “illegality” even in cities that promise official sanctuary.

This study interprets critical stages in the changing design and landscape of urban squares, or praças, in Brazil and assesses the circumstances of their cultural-historical production. Urban squares were shaped by, and in the process contributed to and shed light on, several of the country's major social and artistic movements. The history of the square illustrates a theme of European cultural dominance, especially French, that was a product of the colonial experience and neocolonial influences which were overcome only in the twentieth century through spontaneous creative fusion with indigenous Brazilian elements.

This article investigates the relationship between political identity and public space in the communities of the Colca Valley, in Peru’s rural Andes, by examining two moments in which the built environment became a medium for formatting and engaging a local indigeneity. The first is the colonial invasion, during which the reducci´on plan condensed and dispersed “unruly” native subjects around a public square and a church. The second is the contemporary moment, in which that same space is used to stage audits, evaluations, and competitions in the context of a development paradigm shifting from service provision to investing in indigeneity by financing the promotion of entrepreneurial and agricultural practices that organizations classify as typically indigenous. This article offers two arguments: (1) in the colonial era, notions of indigenous identity configured efforts to improve and regulate daily life—or, to achieve development; and (2) through changing historical contexts, the built environment is used as a medium for defining Colcan indigeneity, deploying it to generate strategic knowledge and regulatory force, and investing it with the potential for various kinds of salvation. This approach suggests that transnational paradigms do not simply “touch down,” but also, adjust and push existing dynamics through the local media at their disposal.

I use the concept of “engaged anthropology” to frame a discussion of how “spatializing culture” uncovers systems of exclusion that are hidden or naturalized and thus rendered invisible to other methodological approaches. “Claiming Space for an Engaged Anthropology” is doubly meant: to claim more intellectual and professional space for engagement and to propose that anthropology include the dimension of space as a theoretical construct. I draw on three fieldwork examples to illustrate the value of the approach: (1) a Spanish American plaza, reclaimed from a Eurocentric past, for indigenous groups and contemporary cultural interpretation; (2) Moore Street Market, an enclosed Latino food market in Brooklyn, New York, reclaimed for a translocal set of social relations rather than a gentrified redevelopment project; (3) gated communities in Texas and New York and cooperatives in New York, reclaiming public space and confronting race and class segregation created by neoliberal enclosure and securitization.

China, like many other nations, struggled in the twentieth century with defining an indigenous landscape design tradition. This was particularly true in addressing urban open space design after China implemented the Open Door Policy in the late 1970s, when Chinese garden design traditions became largely neglected. The objective of this study is to determine whether the traditional design approach could still effectively serve as modern design inspiration. Built upon a previous study by Wu (1999), our study is a reflective critique on modern Chinese urban public space design. We compare major types of traditional and modern Chinese urban open spaces. The percentage areas of five landscape variables that Wu proposed (planting, water, rock, architecture and pavement) were quantified using Photoshop and ArcGIS software. Although Wu (1999) compared only scholars' gardens (a traditional model) with modern parks (a modern model), we include imperial gardens (another traditional model) and urban plazas (another modern model). In addition, we supplemented Wu's plan analysis with perspective view analysis (photographs). Our results suggest more similarities between traditional and modern landscapes than previously suggested. This article concludes by suggesting that traditional models can be relevant to contemporary urban public space design in China.