Practicing tranquilidad : domestic technologies and comfortable homes in southeastern Mexico

This article considers how Mexicans manifest an ideology of modern domestic comfort"”an ideology whose development has to date been mostly explored with reference to Britain and the United States. Based on ethnographic research in the small Mexican city of Chetumal in southern Quintana Roo, it argues that a key concept of tranquilidad (tranquility or comfort) underpins the assembling of houses that are increasingly rich in electronic appliances. Televisions and domestic air conditioners are particularly important technologies whose copresence in the households of the established and emerging middle classes enable residents to achieve homes and lives that The are comfortable.While Chetumal's economy and history make it especially suitable for a tranquil life, the practices and experiences of residents there offer insight into the (seemingly expanding) ideal of middle class Mexican domesticity, and the important role that technologies of the home play in realizing such an ideal.