Spa Tourism in Twentieth-Century Mexico

The heterogeneity of water cultures is rooted in social heterogeneity. After the revolution, national elites collaborated with local actors in an effort to turn the hot springs town of Ixtapan de la Sal, in Mexico State, into a destination for bourgeois tourists from Mexico City. Peasants from that town challenged this outside monopoly over the hot springs they had always used, and they charted an alternative plan for community ownership and management of those waters that preserved access to them for locals and humble visitors. While the struggles over Mexico’s mineral springs show the continued influence of local values and uses for water, the success enjoyed by the business of bathing and bottling points to widespread beliefs in the efficacy of heterogeneous waters.