Territorial appropriation and religious devotion in Los Altos of Morelos

Abstract

This ethnographic sketch describes the commemoration of the sanctuary dedicated to the Virgen del Tránsito in Tlayacapan, Morelos, as well as the sociocultural attributes through which the parishioners, from the sacred dimension, symbolically appropriate a shared territory between two neighboring communities in the Highlands of Morelos: Tlayacapan and Tepoztlán. In this research we want to show how the territory shared by different social groups requires a process of appropriation, from a sociocultural perspective, so that the space takes on an experiential dimension. The process of appropriation of a shared territory since pre-Hispanic times shows socio-cultural continuities, such as a regional commercial exchange, a political consensus, a struggle of the territory by dispossession, which is lived and appreciated in such a way that it provides regional belonging to its inhabitants.