Diablos Rojos: Painted Buses and Panamanian Identities

Abstract

In Panama City, Republic of Panama, debates about transportation modernization focused on diablos rojos, refurbished used U.S. school buses. City-wide protests, debates and national legislation relating to transportation were negotiations for local identity within globalization. This article is salvage anthropology, for painted buses are now outlawed. Detailed observations, interviews and archival research support a history of bus painting, descriptions of buses situated in social networks, and a heteroglossia of viewpoints regarding the bus as symbol. This article complements the 2005 documentary video Diablos Rojos: Los Buses de Panamá.

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