Hybrid Territories: Action Research and Community Project on the Urban-Rural Fringe of Ciudad Bolívar

Abstract

This paper analyzes the production of hybrid territorialities at the urban–rural edge of Ciudad Bolívar (Bogotá) through an action-research process developed with the community of the El Recuerdo Sur neighborhood. In a context shaped by popular urbanization, structural precarity, weak state presence, and memories of forced displacement, the territory emerges as a transitional space where rural practices, urban logics, and community-based self-management converge. Through participatory methodologies, collaborative mapping, intergenerational workshops, and urban-architectural design exercises, the study examines how the community produces, organizes, and disputes its territory. The research focuses on the co-design of a community park as a territorial device capable of transforming social relations, collective imaginaries, and precarious spatial conditions. Findings show that situated community processes generate physical improvements as well as political and project-based alternatives that enable understanding the periphery as a hybrid, active territory producing new forms of urbanity, redefining the role of architectural design in contemporary urban margins.