Seventeenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how today’s globalization has made Granada (Nicaragua) and Antigua (Guatemala) two cities in the Americas that were founded by the Spanish Inquisition in the early 1540s, undergo a wave of neo-colonialism. These cities, which are currently experiencing touristification and a surge of lifestyle migrants from the Global North, might be entering a new wave of economic dependency and Western cultural assimilation to develop and survive economically. While migrants in the global north are escaping the developed world due to the high cost of living and inflation, they are temporarily or permanently relocating to places in the Global South where they can experience better lifestyle conditions. On the other hand, locals in the Global South continue with the same low wages, which don’t provide them access to the new costs of this lifestyle realm resulting in them being second-class citizens in their own country and isolating the indigenous population 51% (Guatemala) and 10% (Nicaragua) further away from their roots. Through a comparative case study of the transformation of both cities, I demonstrate the impact and dependency gentrification might have on the long term in the socioeconomic and cultural aspects. And how these two cities might be an example of this new wave of neocolonialism in Latin America, viewed from a center-periphery model and other push and pull factors of immigration that are now influencing developed nations migrants.