Research project
CONTESTED_TERRITORY From Contested Territories to alternatives of development: Learning from Latin America
- Start date: 1 March 2020
- End date: 1 March 2024
- Funder: EU Horizon 2020
- Value: €2,461m
- Partners and collaborators: Universität Leipzig, The University Of Sheffield (USFD), Universidad Autonoma De Madrid (UAM), Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), Facultad Latinoamericana De Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut De Recherche Pour Le Developpement (IRD), Torero Film Gbr (TORERO FILM), Basurama Asociacion (BASURAMA), Habita65 - Associacao Pelo Direito A Habitacao E A Cidade (HABITA65), la hidra cooperativa, SCCL (LA HIDRA), Technische Universität Berlin (TUB)
- Primary investigator: Prof. Sara González
- External primary investigator: Michael Janosckha
The overall objective of CONTESTED_TERRITORY is to form an international and intersectoral network of organisations from across Europe and Latin America on a joint research programme that pursues conceptual and empirical knowledge generation and circulation on innovative and sustainable bottom-up models of territorial development. We consider community-led practice enacting alternative knowledge as basis for a productive framework to grasp transformations of space and society supporting local-to-global knowledge diffusion.
In particular, the RISE action will deliver novel understandings on how ordinary people produce innovative models for more sustainable and resilient environments. By this, we will learn how they shape, negotiate, imagine and collaboratively manage territories in contested and uneven power relations and how they progress unconventional models of social integration.
The participants of the network will exchange and generate new knowledge to surpass mainstream understandings of development and contribute to scientific breakthroughs by integrating bottom-up strategies to adapt to risk, vulnerability and exclusion. Our progress will engage with and contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda from alternative conceptual and practical perspectives.
At the same time, we will nurture novel approaches to redefine the relations between humanity and the environment by including discourses emerging out of Latin American popular culture and indigenous cosmovision. This provides opportunities for academic and non-academic participants to actively shape practice and policies targeting more inclusive territorial development and different models of social cohesion; generating significant benefits for societies in Latin America, with transferable outcomes to Europe. Staff members participating in this action will develop new skills; be exposed to inspiring research environments, significantly widening their career perspectives in and beyond academia