Between rural and urban: action research in peripheral areas of El Alto de La Paz, Bolivia

Between rural and urban: action research in peripheral areas of El Alto de La Paz, Bolivia

Lead Applicant:

Instituto de Investigaciones Geográficas IIGEO, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA)

Collaborators:

Instituto de Investigación y Acción para el Desarrollo Integral (IIADI)

Overview

Within the framework of the “right to the city”, an action-research study was developed with residents and leaders of the peripheral ‘urbanización’ (housing developments) of Districts 8 and 14 of the city of El Alto de La Paz, Bolivia. The research involved the participation of early career and senior researchers and was articulated around professional expertise from architecture, sociology and geography to address issues related to empowerment and construction of public policies around urban issues. It has been an interdisciplinary study and the results have been made visible to and have empowered the residents of Urbanización Cristal and Urbanización Nuevos Horizontes as a contribution to the resolution of demands and the construction of citizenship.

The overall objective was to: contribute to citizen empowerment in the knowledge and exercise of the right to the city, a fundamental principle of the New Urban Agenda (NAU), through the construction of knowledge, from a territorial approach of the urban periphery, with the same actors, through an Action Research approach, in the format of training workshops, complemented with the implementation of a quantitative survey whose final result will contribute to the strengthening of the current urban policy under construction.

This was further broken down as:

• Citizen empowerment in the knowledge and exercise of the right to the city: Community workshops were developed in both housing developments with themes that allowed participants to see themselves and project themselves as an urbanización. The workshop activities included mental maps, neighbourhood history and right to the city.
• Construction of knowledge, from a territorial approach to the urban periphery.
• Action Research, in the format of training workshops. Development of training workshops (4 per development) with the following themes: Mental maps; History of the Neighbourhood, Right to the City and Construction of proposals from below.
• Quantitative survey: For the implementation of the survey ballot, stratified random sampling was carried out that allowed delimiting of the number of people surveyed.
• Strengthening of the current urban policy under construction.

The development of the entire research process was carried out by the early career researchers in the stages of design, elaboration and execution of the research techniques. It was the early career researchers who implemented the different techniques and activities. Their training was developed in classrooms of the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, in the subjects of Geography of the Population and Urban Sociology, and in the same way there were postgraduate students in the subject of Population Dynamics, Migration, Mobility and Environmental impact. This process included the review of secondary information sources, review of bibliography, construction of posters and bibliographic records. Going from the classroom to contact with the population was the priority for this project and for the early career researchers who spent time between the classroom and the developments of the city of El Alto, Urbanización Cristal of District 8 and the Urbanización Nuevos Horizontes Norte of District 14 of the city of El Alto of La Paz, Bolivia.

The implementation of qualitative and quantitative research techniques had the following impacts on the Cristal and Nuevos Horizontes Norte developments:

• Visibility of the neighbourhood association as a representative organisation of the residents of both housing developments.
• Visibility of both housing developments in academic instances (universities and other research institutions) and other entities (Mayor’s Office, sub-mayor’s office and other neighbourhood association organisations).
• Visibility of both housing developments from the publications produced: Documents, Peripheral Territories (research results) and History of the neighbourhood booklets
• Construction of the history of the neighbourhood based on qualitative information
• Identification of the main needs of both housing developments based on quantitative information
• Agreements and conventions between both housing developments and the Universidad Mayor de San Andres

• In August / September 2019, the project team held six action research workshops, three in each Urbanización, with residents and early career researchers as participants. 30 – 40 residents and 30 early career researchers attended each workshop.
• Interviews were carried out in the Cristal and Nuevos Horizontes Norte housing developments with 30 residents and 10 leaders per development, making a total of 80 participants.
• The survey was conducted in the housing developments reaching 210 survey ballots for Urbanización Cristal and about 80 survey ballots for the Urbanización Nuevos Horizontes Norte. The data were entered to SPSS for the analysis of the information by variable and crossing of variables.
• Coordination meetings were held with eight members of the Board of residents from each housing development.
• An Inter-institutional agreement was signed for a period of three years between Urbanización Cristal of District 8 and Urbanización Nuevos Horizontes Norte of District 14 of the city of El Alto and the Universidad Mayor de San Andres.

Publications

1. Book: Peripheral Territories. Study of two developments in the city of El Alto (or Territorios Periféricos)

The book begins with the following story that integrates some interesting experiences:

“From the classroom to the street. It was one of the challenges that broke down the barriers between the theoretical academic world, isolated and separated from the social life of communities and peoples. With the students, we managed to get out of the University, to access the poor, excluded and most needy populations. It was found that the greatest professional learning occurs through social interaction and not through the accumulation of authors and theories, often inapplicable and out of context.” (René Pereira Morató (MSc), Sociólogo Urbano y Coordinador del Proyecto).

2. Primer:  History of the neighbourhood of Urbanización Cristal and Urbanización Nuevos Horizontes Norte (or Historia del barrio Territorios periféricos), Daniel Hernando López Fernández, Investigador Temas Urbanos

The second stage of the investigation:

“Right to the City, perception and construction from the actors: in peripheral territories of the City of El Alto de La Paz, Bolivia”

The Right to the City is understood as the capacity for action and political advocacy of citizens. It is a concept that exceeds individual claims to urban services such as gas, water, sewage, garbage, transportation, etc. within a framework of understanding the city not as a commodity, but as a common good and, therefore, as a collective right. Given that the Right to the City is not on the country’s agenda and the City Policy is currently being debated, it makes it very pertinent to undertake a study that contributes to operationalising this paradigm, from different knowledge perspectives, in particular from the peripheral actors involved. The urbanizaciónes of Cristal and Nuevos Horizontes Norte of the city of El Alto have developed very organically and with considerable impact; therefore, studying the political agency will make both housing developments visible and highlighted.

The strengthening of the Cristal and Nuevos Horizontes Norte housing developments in Districts 8 and 14 is manifest in the following ways:

1. Visibility of housing developments based on research results.
2. Qualitative and quantitative diagnosis that allows identifying the strengths and weaknesses of both housing developments.
3. Objectively, the main needs of the housing developments were identified.
4. Both housing developments made an institutional agreement that allows them to generate other activities with other faculties of the Universidad Mayor de San Andres.

Further examples include:

Strengthening of Peripheral Neighbourhoods

The main needs and potentialities of the inhabitants living in the peripheries were identified, resulting in the Peripheral territories book.

A database was produced from the survey with Quantitative data in SPSS format.

The history of the neighbourhoods was constructed from in-depth interviews and this formed the basis of the Neighbourhood History Primer: Urbanización Cristal and Urbanización Nuevos Horizontes Norte.

The visibility of the peripheral neighbourhoods was generated from the management and identification of the themes in the construction of urban policy in the country and this resulted in negotiation and then an institutional agreement between the housing developments and the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés. This institutional agreement will allow the housing developments to manage other actions with the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, such as the implementation of studies in different areas such as agronomy, architecture, law, etc.

Strengthening of Leaders

Through training for the leaders of the housing developments, they strengthened their advocacy capacities within their Urbanización and improved their negotiation capacities with other entities, such as sub-mayorships and other neighbourhood associations. Similarly, the development of training workshops for boards of directors of the developments on the Right to the City were beneficial.

Strengthening of Organisations

Through the documentation and dissemination of project activities, including photographs, videos and other elements that were shared on social media, the Rural Urban Territorial Observatory of the Institute of Geographical Research of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés was further strengthened.

New networks were generated around the theme of the urbanisation processes, with an emphasis on the peripheries. For example, networks within the Comunidad Urbano Territorial (CUT) (Territorial Urban Community), coordinated activities for the dissemination of research results. The CUT is made up of academics and institutions that develop research activities around the urban theme.

Strengthening of Early Career Researcher Capacities

Action research provided early career researchers with the opportunity to leave the classroom and move towards the communities in such a way that they developed and implemented qualitative and quantitative research techniques whilst in contact with their own realities.

The formation of a multidisciplinary team (Sociology, Geography, Anthropology, Psychology and Statistics) contributed to the training process of early career researchers as they interacted with senior researchers across disciplines.