1/18/23, 12:20 AM Participatory process for land readjustment as a strategy to gain the right to territory: The case of San
of San José–Samborondón–Guayaquil… 1/18/23, 12:20 AM Participatory process for land readjustment as a strategy to gain the right to territory: The case of San José–Samborondón–Guayaquil…
Land Use Policy
Volume 100, January 2021, 105121
Participatory process for land readjustment as a strategy to
gain the right to territory: The case of San José–
Samborondón–Guayaquil
Alina Delgado a, b , Joris Scheers b
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105121
Abstract
Urban development in Latin America in the last decades is the result of the formal and
informal processes of land occupation. As the largest city and main port of Ecuador, Guayaquil
is no exception and as a case study, offers new insights into the dynamics of these processes.
This city’s metropolitan expansion has exceeded its natural geographic limits (e.g. hills, rivers,
estuaries), resulting in segregated populations and a fragmented urban landscape that
exacerbates social inequalities. This paper explores the potentialities and limitations of a
participatory process as a strategy to gain the right to territory, by investigating the case of the
San José site, a rural area of Samborondón Canton, and metropolitan Guayaquil. The study
assessed whether the methods used in combination with land management tools were
appropriate for the community’s process and needs and whether they contribute to the
empowerment of rural and peripheral communities in the fight to claim land rights. Surveys
and testimony concerning a participatory design in land readjustment are used. The research
considers how a participatory process can allow inhabitants to become essential stakeholders
in their community-planning process, to create a more equitable and inclusive city.
Simultaneously, the process can contribute to providing essential knowledge for the different
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264837719309962
actors (public, private, and academic). The study discusses the potential and critical issues,
limitations, and challenges of a participatory approach.
Introduction
Formal and informal processes of urban development in Latin America are caused by a
complex, multicausal phenomenon with economic, social, political, and legal aspects. As the
main port of Ecuador, the metropolitan area of Guayaquil offers new insights into how the
formal and informal processes of urban development have evolved in a territory involving a
complex estuarine landscape, extreme vulnerability to climate change, and conflicting
administrative competences (Delgado, 2013a, 2018). This paper explores the potential and
limitations of a participatory process for land readjustment as a strategy to gain the right to
territory. The study assesses the appropriateness of the methods used for a community’s
process and needs and their contribution to the empowerment of rural and peripheral
communities in the fight to claim land rights. To achieve this objective, this study investigates
the case of the rural area of San José in the canton of Samborondón, northeast of Guayaquil,a
on the west bank of the Babahoyo River.
San José’s inhabitants have resided in the area for 50–60 years without land tenure or basic
services and have devised a method of informal land plot distribution (i.e., plot markers made
of wood or bamboo stakes). Thus, the locations of residences do not correspond to rural–
urban plans proposed by the municipality or other organisation, and the recognition of
Get rights and content property involves an informal land registration process (Lai et al., 2016) that relies mostly on
trusted local leaders’ knowledge of community history (Zevenbergen et al., 2013). Although the
inhabitants have not been threatened with eviction by the municipality or the central
government, they have expressed to the municipality several times their discomfort with the
lack of basic services and land titles, and they endure frequent flooding every rainy season. To
respond to these requests, Municipality Councillor Dr. M. A. visited the University Espiritu
Santo, seeking academic support for possible community projects. The university and the
municipality then both initiated a joint community project to implement a land readjustment
proposal and construction of a recreational area near the Babahoyo River, and the actors
included inhabitants of San José, the municipality of Samborondón, and university students.
The project included fieldwork, interviews, and workshops with the community (Delgado,
2018). An analysis of the dynamics of formal/informal land production and the use of the right
to the city is the theoretical framework for this study. Land management instruments are drawn
from this framework. Next, based on a readjustment of land plots and the implementation of
value capture (Smolka, 2013), this study proposes alternative financing for urban development.
Therefore, the application of land management instruments that convey a sense of social
justice is proposed such that increases in land value due to development do not displace
indigenous populations or lead to gentrification (Lees et al., 2007). Such instruments could
thus help protect local inhabitants from displacement and social fragmentation.
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This project is the result of a participatory process of public policy implementation related to
land rights, in which the main phases of what is identified as action research can be
recognised: planning, design, action (McNiff, 2013; Zuber-Skerritt and Wood, 2019), and
reflecting. A process of learning from social practices was implemented and is a means to
build knowledge and capacities within communities and groups, especially in complex social
settings with uncertainties and political changes (Chevalier and Buckles, 2019). This study
undertakes a participatory action research approach: We consider a democratic, equitable, life-
enhancing, and value-oriented qualitative methodology and form of enquiry, with the primary
goal of social change (Koch et al., 2002; MacDonald, 2012).
Section snippets
(In)formal urbanisation processes and use of land management
instruments to gain rights to territory
Urban informality has been widely documented in Latin America (Turner, 1967, 1968; Matos
Mar, 1977), and the processes of so-called informal and formal city making (Scheers, 1992,
1993; Holston, 2008; Ballegooijen and Rocco, 2013) influence urban policies in the region and
across the world. Consequently, the self-help approach has spread and is a viable practice for
low-income individuals to obtain their houses (Ward, 2015). Further, in the last few years,
programmes for land regularisation…
This study’s main research question was about the appropriateness of the methods used for the
particular process and needs of a community, and we observed that they were useful for
gathering information on the site and applying it into a final design product. This study’s
secondary question was whether the methods used contribute to empowering the community,
and that answer requires a longer follow-up and supervision of the project’s results.…
Discussion and conclusion
The participatory process used for land readjustment and applied to the case of the San José
site reveals the potential and limitations of the application of participatory approaches for
developing capabilities, generating alliances, and building knowledge. Nevertheless, the use of
these methods also raises new challenges for researchers and scholars involved in the
participatory process.…
Authorship statement
All persons who meet authorship who meet authorship criteria are listed as authors, and all
authors certify that they have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility
for the content, including participation in the concept, design, analysis, writing, or revision of
the manuscript. Furthermore, each author certifies that this material has not been and will not
submitted to or published in any other publication before its appearance in the Journal of Land
Use Policy.…

Study site: San José–Samborondón–Guayaquil

Declaration of Competing Interest
This study examines San José, a rural area of 252 km2 in Samborondón Canton, in the The authors report no declarations of interest.…
metropolitan area of Guayaquil, Guayas province (Fig. 1). San José is at the northeast of
Guayaquil, on the far side of the Babahoyo River. The city of Guayaquil was initially developed
at the base of the Santa Ana Hill by the Guayas River. The cacao crisis of 1929 (Delgado, 2013a) References (87)
expanded the city to the south, where the first informal settlements were built over the
estuaries. Almost 100 years later, the city … J. Zevenbergen et al.
Pro-poor land administration: principles for recording the land rights of the
underrepresented
Methods: Site surveys/interviews, workshops, and community building Land Use Policy (2013)

The methodology in this study to pursue a participatory approach included three phases in the P.M. Ward
field. The first phase of fieldwork comprised in-depth interviews; the second phase was Housing rehabilitation for consolidated informal settlements: a new policy agenda for
participatory design workshops to design the land readjustment of plots; the third phase was 2016 UN-Habitat III
the construction of a recreational area next to the Babahoyo River. The phases were defined for Habitat Int. (2015)
the actors to familiarise them with the context and build trust among them. In each phase,
T.J. Usón et al.
different methods and instruments…
Using participatory geographic approaches for urban flood risk in Santiago de Chile:
insights from a governance analysis
Results Environ. Sci. Policy (2016)

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1/18/23, 12:20 AM Participatory process for land readjustment as a strategy to gain the right to territory: The case of San José–Samborondón–Guayaquil… 1/18/23, 12:20 AM Participatory process for land readjustment as a strategy to gain the right to territory: The case of San José–Samborondón–Guayaquil…

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