On October 26, Ángel Alcides Aronés Cisneros presented at he UAB the doctoral thesis “Rural development in Los Morochucos (Ayacucho, Peru): the voice of local knowledge in the sustainable planning of the territory”. Doctoral Programme in Geography. Thesis directed by Anna Badia, Jordi Nadal and Anna Ortiz (UAB).
The main objective of the research is to value the voice of the experiences of the people who live in the rural population centers of the Los Morochucos district (Ayacucho, Peru), based on a spatial accessibility diagnosis, in order to make visible their problems and their needs and take them into account in territorial planning. To respond to this objective, a mixed methodology has been applied that consists of combining cartographic analysis with qualitative analysis. On the one hand, cartographic analysis, based on GIS tools for network analysis, offers an empirical diagnosis of the accessibility of the population’s accessibility to basic services. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis made from semi-structured interviews, direct observation and documentary review, highlights the perception and experience of the local population and its priorities. The results indicate that the population’s accessibility to basic services constitutes a tool to understand the quality of life of rural populations. Likewise, the perception and experience of local actors contribute to understanding their interests from their roles as an authority, as a woman and as a man and, therefore, are an asset in the design of territorial management tools. The interviews show the prioritization of the social, economic and decent living dimensions related to sustainable development. It is concluded that a rural territorial planning model aimed at sustainable development must consider the voice of the population to revalue the territory as a space for relations and transformations, and must promote citizen participation as an important engine for the management of the territory.
