Water use in everyday life occurs and is reproduced in specific spaces designed for the supply, conservation, and use of water. The objectives of this article are: (a) to document the places in which water is supplied, used, and replenished in Guadalajara City from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century; (b) to analyze these practices from the perspective of social spaces as axes of interaction between the city and its experience through the use of water in daily life; (c) to use the concept of public and private to understand and analyze these spaces as they relate to the analytical axes of shared habits for public spaces and survival strategies for private spaces; (d) to explore the ways in which people transit between public and private spheres and change their notions and practices with regard to space, and how these are metabolized in public and in private.
Public contexts are understood in terms of shared behaviors at local springs, swimming pools, public baths, streams, public laundries, watering troughs, and public fountains; these include locations with religious significance such Chapala Lake, considered sacred by both Catholics and the Wirrarika, an indigenous community in northern Jalisco. Private contexts are related to survival behaviors such as cooking, daily showers, domestic cleaning, cleaning one’s body, self-image, personal hygiene, and using the toilet. In this sense, the places in which Guadalajaran society interacts with water become daily spaces where the presence of water offers cultural meanings as points of reference for the city in that period and the spaces of water are metabolized as points of reference for life. In the early 20th century, new tools, infrastructure, and uses of water bring about the transformation and the re-signification of a new Culture of Water.
