The project contemplates the creation of an international research consortium. The UFRO will be in charge of the southern node in Chile.

“Territories of response” is the name of the Horizon 2020 project that has just been awarded to the research group on culture and territory at the Social Science Nucleus of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) and the Center of International Research of the Patagonia (CIEPatagonia). The initiative will bring theoretical and empirical knowledge about alternative models of development that challenge the traditional schemes and that tend to create sustainable and resilient environments.

It is an emerging field of research in the world that focuses on the value of territorial knowledge and on how it provides different points of view regarding social organization, responding to the dominant hegemonic model. “The spaces of response are organized in a non-traditional manner, establishing communities that see the world in a different way, and implementing, for example, different pedagogical practices or relationships with nature from a new perspective,” Dr. Hugo Zunino, the director of the UFRO node of the consortium explained.

The project includes the formation of an international research consortium, comprised of the University of Leeds (UK), University of Sheffield (UK), Autonomous University of Madrid (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) in Spain, Polytechnic University of Milan (Politecnico di Milano) in Italy, Free University of Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin) in Germany, University of Buenos Aires (Universidad de Buenos Aires) in Argentina, University of San Andrés (Universidad de San Andrés) in Bolivia, Pontifical Xavierian University (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) in Colombia, Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences (Ecuador), University of Chile and the Universidad de La Frontera.
Within this framework, the UFRO will be in charge of the research in the southern node in Chile, considering the experience of more than 10 years in the work with local communities. The research group of the UFRO is led by Dr. Hugo Zunino and comprised of the researchers Dr. Lindsey Carte, Viviana Huiliñir and Natalia Caniguán, and postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students.

VERTICAL KNOWLEDGE

“The first thing we are going to do is to find out where these spaces of response are and to get to know their people. This study is going to be ethnographic. We will be involved in the daily life of these groups,” the researcher clarified. Afterwards, the process of documentation and dissemination will begin through social and artistic expressions. The discussion will also be taken to the academy, responding to the traditional way of knowledge creation.

“We are revealing, emphasizing and enhancing local knowledge, the experiences of daily life, the different ways to think about urban and rural development, to think about our relationship with nature and other people. We are addressing the Cartesian and Kantian model, we are discussing with this vertical knowledge, overcoming the invisibilization of the human being in modern science,” Dr. Zunino added.

The researchers are currently in the phase of planning the activities of this project, which will have a duration of two years. The aspiration is to establish a research field within the universities, and particularly at the Universidad de La Frontera, that focuses on the spaces of response, revealing the value of territorial knowledge and its contribution to sustainability and resilience.