Date of Graduation

Spring 5-19-2023

Document Access

Project/Capstone - Global access

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Migration Studies

College/School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department/Program

Migration Studies

First Advisor

Sergio de La Torre

Abstract

Ambigú Trashumante Barra de Café Ambulante is an applied research project which took shape over the course of a calendar year from May 2022-2023. A six-person team evolved including the personified project itself, united as one communal entity in collaboration. The project entailed creation of a bicicargo, or cargo bike–useful art becoming a mobile coffee bar and literal vehicle embodying justice through coffee offered freely in México, as facilitated through decolonized ethnography and Mesoamerican Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR). The project’s theoretical framework centers on Bruguera’s (2012) arte útil conceptualization. Five core patterns emerged, including the right to thrive in place with the bicycle as freedom of mobility and a vehicle for entrepreneurship, equalizing power for those with a trade, the anti-capitalist subversive movement, tequitl (Náhuatl), and the reclamation of materials, trade, and space. The project exceeded its goals, becoming a prime conduit for immigrant, migrant, and refuged immigrant justice, and resulted in additional recommendations for ongoing participation as well as a number of identified opportunities for additional research and collaboration.

Keywords: Ambigú, Trashumante, Barra de Café, Ambulante, café, arte útil, bicicleta, bicicargo, tequitl, México, Mexico, transhumance, bicycle, cargo bike, coffee bar, coffee, decolonized ethnography, Mesoamerican, community, Participatory Action Research, immigrant, migrant, migration studies, justice, anti-capitalist, entrepreneurship, subversive, mobility, reclamation, trade, collective

Comments

Ambigú Trashumante Barra de Café Ambulante is an applied research project which took shape over the course of a calendar year from May 2022-2023. A six-person team evolved including the personified project itself, united as one communal entity in collaboration. The project entailed creation of a bicicargo, or cargo bike–useful art becoming a mobile coffee bar and literal vehicle embodying justice through coffee offered freely in México, as facilitated through decolonized ethnography and Mesoamerican Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR). The project’s theoretical framework centers on Bruguera’s (2012) arte útil conceptualization. Five core patterns emerged, including the right to thrive in place with the bicycle as freedom of mobility and a vehicle for entrepreneurship, equalizing power for those with a trade, the anti-capitalist subversive movement, tequitl (Náhuatl), and the reclamation of materials, trade, and space. The project exceeded its goals, becoming a prime conduit for immigrant, migrant, and refuged immigrant justice, and resulted in additional recommendations for ongoing participation as well as a number of identified opportunities for additional research and collaboration.

Keywords: Ambigú, Trashumante, Barra de Café, Ambulante, café, arte útil, bicicleta, bicicargo, tequitl, México, Mexico, transhumance, bicycle, cargo bike, coffee bar, coffee, decolonized ethnography, Mesoamerican, community, Participatory Action Research, immigrant, migrant, migration studies, justice, anti-capitalist, entrepreneurship, subversive, mobility, reclamation, trade, collective

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