Cooperación Comunitaria, Arquitectura participativa

Cooperación Comunitaria is a non-profit civil organisation founded in 2012 by Isadora Hastings and Gerson Huerta, which originated from the questioning of neoliberal policies that, along with other affectations, have displaced the richness and diversity of traditional, rural and indigenous dwellings in Mexico. Through the collaborative work of an interdisciplinary group with different ethno-linguistic communities, CC built an integral approach to the production and social management of habitat (PGSH) in four areas: territorial-environmental, socio-cultural, constructive and productive. Each project promoted by CC is based on an exercise of reflection and common diagnosis that supports organised processes of community action capable of generating sustainable self-management of the territory, the improvement of habitability and the reduction of risk in the face of natural and social hazards.

‘Arquitectura participativa’ brings together the diverse experiences and ways of approaching PGSH in the territories where Cooperación Comunitaria works, under the principles of co-responsibility, reciprocity and communality, in correspondence with indigenous forms of government based on mutual support, collective organisation, decision-making in assembly and social use of the land. This issue of Alias presents an extensive collection of stories, analyses, images and diagrams illustrating CC’s activities with the Hñähñu (Otomi) peoples of the Mezquital Valley in Hidalgo, mè’phàà (Tlapaneco) from the Montaña of Guerrero, ñomndaa from the Costa Chica of Guerrero, Tseltales from the Selva region in Chiapas, and binnizá (Zapotec) and ikoots (Huave) from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca.

Spanish, 200 × 250 mm, 368 pages, soft cover with flaps, ISBN: 978-607-7985-45-7, Published by Alias