Desarrollo y gobernanza portuaria en territorios globales: el caso de Buenaventura, Colombia (1991 - 2016)

Abstract

This research project is based on the theoretical postulates from Saskia Sassen (one of the most important representatives of the dynamics of territorialisation of the forces of economic globalization in specific locations and realities). In conjunction with these postulates, the subsidiary theories on governance and the effects produced from the extractivism, both play a remarkable role to analyze the dichotomous conditions between economic significance and social poverty for the municipality of Buenaventura based on the existence of a port infrastructure in its territory.

The social reality of the municipality of Buenaventura is the result of different interactions of circumstances and scenarios, therefore, its interpretation results in the complexity of transposition of different scales between culture, history, economics, geography, politics, and violence, among others. For this reason, this project intends to help better comprehend the interaction between two of the multiple circumstances already mentioned: the existence and the development of the port activity and the economical development proposals of the territory from the economic opening of the country in the 1990s.

To achieve this objective, the methodology of the analysis of documentary content was applied during the selection of formal institutional textual collections that allowed the establishment of the directions taken by the variables during the period of study.

The project allows us to infer that the changes in the national directives on models of port governance have significantly influenced the living conditions of the population in the municipality of Buenaventura. These changes are the result of the territorialisation of those directives adopted by the municipal entity with its proposals for local development, which arise from the application of planning instruments like municipal and territorial development plans.

This research is a first step forward in the interpretation of the interrelations between two of the most relevant aspects in the municipality (the port activity and the persistent poverty). It is not a definitive explanation, but rather a gateway for a critical approach against the determination of development trajectories for Buenaventura beyond the dependence on the existence of the port, the inquiry about the development of the Port Societies and their relationship with the territories where they operate, and the proposal towards solutions to the poor and persistent living conditions of the Buenaventura communities.