Casa de Barro: Global Markets, National Politics, and the Fate of the House of Mud in Mexico’s Tehuantepec Isthmus

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico played an important role as a transit route facilitated by the construction of an interoceanic railway that enabled the transport of goods primarily from the United States. At that time, the area’s population inhabited two types of housing differentiated by materiality and associated with social class. Palm-thatched houses were common for ordinary people, while adobe and brick houses were built for local elites. Abrupt sociocultural changes in this period led to the emergence of a new type of dwelling that quickly spread throughout the region. This new housing type— locally known as casa de barro , or “house of mud”— featured a wooden structure, wattle-and-daub walls, and a wooden and tiled roof. Following the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the region’s economic boom came to an end and regional development diminished. Some of these houses still exist today; a few remain inhabited, others have been altered, and some have been repurposed as household storage spaces. Through explication of the casa de barro, this article examines how global economic forces and national political agendas drive territorial changes that, in turn, reshape the vernacular landscape.