Participatory action planning as transductive reasoning: towards the right to the city in Los Arenales, Antofagasta, Chile

Abstract

This article discusses the experience of creating an overall plan for developing an informal settlement in the Chilean city of Antofagasta. This was accomplished by applying transductive reasoning to a community urban planning practice that aims to advance the community towards achieving the right to the city. By doing so, the article elaborates on insights gathered from the application of transductive reasoning as a method developed by Henri Lefebvre to reflect on the possible futures of cities using a bottom-up approach, thus utilizing the right to the city as a political agenda. Thus, this intervention provides an empirical reflection on the scope of action research in which the ideas of Henri Lefebvre are suitable for transforming utopian thinking into a political agenda for social transformation by a grassroots organization. The conclusions express the critiques of other authors whose approaches to Henri Lefebvre’s methods are substantially theoretical, thus wasting its empirical potential and capacity to engage communities.

Community mapping with a public participation geographic information system in informal settlements

“…It also depicted how this process empowered the community. After the socialisation of these cartographies, the macrocampamento had the tools to discuss the possibility of their own urban form and defined areas for development (Vergara‐Perucich, 2020). For people left out of the official urban maps, to see their own informal city as a representation of histories and possibilities was key for increasing their self‐esteem and strengthening their will to continue their struggle.…”