Participatory mapping as a tool for territorial management in the provinces of La Rioja and Córdoba, Argentina

MARIA GUILLERMINA DIAZ

Innsbruck

Congreso; International Mountain Conference; 2022

Along with the processes of restoring democratic orders in South American countries, new perspectives and ways of understanding territorial planning are emerging, not only from the state but also from within communities and organised social movements. It is from here that approaches that resemble the real and urgent needs of communities begin to take shape and be promoted. After all the progress made over the last thirty years, Participatory Planning has managed to establish itself in the field of territorial management and planning. These mechanisms are beginning to be recognised by the State, but also by citizens.In this way, it is the people who inhabit the territories who really create and transform it, shape it and know it from the way they live and walk through it. To understand space as the result of social interaction is also to understand it as the result of the power relations that occur in it. As a result of this, it is possible to think that one way of seeing the relations between the different actors reflected is through the participatory construction of the territories, together and seeking the consensus of all the actors involved in this process of social production. By inhabiting places, communities create and transform spaces. In this context, in the provinces of La Rioja and Córdoba, collective actors (environmental assemblies and self-convened neighbours) involved in socio-territorial conflicts unleashed by the advance of extractive activities, mainly mega-mining in the foothills and in the Sierras Pampeanas, felt the need to recognise themselves in the territories they inhabit and travel through. To this end, assembly meetings and workshops were held with the aim of constructing participatory cartography in order to begin to manage and plan the territories.In this way, this paper presents two cases of participatory mapping together with territorial surveys in the aforementioned provinces. Both mappings were carried out in the form of virtual and face-to-face workshops with members of environmental assemblies and self-convened neighbours. It should be noted that digital tools were used for the elaboration of the maps, allowing the information to be visualised and reflecting the reality of the territories. This resulted in the construction of analogue and digital maps and, in the case of La Rioja, a booklet produced collaboratively, which gives an account of the process carried out.