Abstract

SILVIA, Marenco. Los comerciantes bahienses y sus prácticas como agentes urbanos. Rev. Univ. geogr. [online]. 2006, vol.15, n.1, pp. 117-138. ISSN 1852-4265.

Globalization processes of economy have impacted upon life and city construction; thus, generating a transformation in traditional commercial areas in the cities with scarce innovating capacity and provoking downtown weakening and decadence. Commerce is considered to be a developed social area due to the agents in time (habitus), and according to a determined practice structure. We seek to establish what type of strategies shopkeepers have set out taking into account their position and enhancing both economic and political power relationships in the frame of society, while at the same time, these are shown spatially in the construction of the city. In this context, Bahía Blanca has not been alien to these processes and shopkeepers have become true urban agents shaping rich patrimonial areas, unfortunately degraded today, which reveal their performance.

Keywords : Urban Agent; Commerce; Social Practices; Innovation; Field; Habitus.