Trueque Based Urbanism

Abstract

Usme is a village and former municipality in the south of Bogotá. Urbanisation has transformed the social and spatial structure of the village deeply. Agrarian production and distribution has been affected strongly by the global trend of industrialisation of agriculture and changing agents in the field during the second half of the twentieth century, while at the same time a significant share of the area of the former municipality turned urban. Both processes are analysed in a parallel way with a focus on overlooked existing and changing relations and potentials of food cycles between rural and urban inhabitants and challenges regarding production and distribution of agrarian goods. The problems and solutions of food flows could represent alternative benchmarks for the sustainable future of the urban expansion area between the rural and the urban part of Usme. This analysis is developed in the framework of my PhD Thesis.