Desarrollo local endógeno, una propuesta desde la acción participativa, el caso de la comunidad indígena de San Pedro Huitzquilico, San Luis Potosí

Abstract

It is possible to find in the Mexican “Huasteca Potosina” a large amount of indigenous communities. Many of these ethnic groups in this country suffer from poverty and social relegation despite they are rich in natural and cultural values. This research was developed in the rural community of San Pedro Huitzquilico. It is populated by the indigenous group “nahuas”. It is located in the southeast of the “Huasteca Potosina” on the “Sierra Madre Occidental”, 15 kilometers away from the main town, “Xilitla”. In this community, poverty and social backwardness are still high despite structural changes and new implemented policies during the last years. Nowadays, this group faces new challenges derived form a global processes. These challenges are mainly related to global intercommunication, to the impact on the environment, to the social restructuration and local policies. All these changes affect to the group and the same time they can became new opportunities to take action from the inside the community. Considering these aspects, they have to identify local opportunities that could be better linked to global aspects. From this point, new action lines may emerged and may provide new possibilities for the local endogenous development as an alternative to improve their current condition. In the pursuing of new action local lines, a participative action research (IAP, for its name in Spanish) was considered to establish a bridge to allow a dialogue between academic knowledge and popular knowledge, creating synergy into the community. This way was possible to find adequate conducts of work which consider these theoretical ideas and local knowledge and it was possible to include the different social actors from the community of “San Pedro Huitzquilico”.