Some will still fondly remember the “Projeto Querença” which, seven years ago, in the village of Querença, was a breath of fresh air in a very depressive general situation, marked by the imminence of bankruptcy and the arrival of the Troika. It was an irreverent project, very daring for the hostile conditions that then prevailed, but, perhaps for that very reason, much appreciated and applauded and, also, supported.
Now that the possibility of another approach to low-density territories is being discussed, the so-called smartification of the territory, it is worth recalling some essential features of the Querença Project.
After a brief revisit, we will make a tour of Querença Smart Village.
I. The Querença Project (PQ) (2011-2012)
1. The general objectives of the QP
The Querença Project was a project or mission of territorial rescue of territories in critical condition, severely affected by processes of desertification and abandonment of their natural, productive and social capitals, and very close to dangerous thresholds of irreversible development.
The Querença Project was oriented towards low-density rural areas, villages, groups of villages or even municipalities, with variable geometry and according to an analysis of the relevance of existing, potential and available resources.
The Querença Project had a fundamental purpose, namely, to expand the scope of possibilities of these territories in critical condition and, at the same time, to promote the employment of young graduates in precarious professional situations, using, for this purpose, an innovative territorial approach which aimed to settle that newly graduated university population in the interior.
2. The organization of the QP
The Querença Project was formed from three main promoters: the Municipality of Loulé, the University of Algarve and the Viegas Guerreiro de Querença Foundation, which became the direct promoter of the project.
The Querença Project constituted a mission team or group with the express objective of designing a Territorial Development Pact or Convention for the intervention area.
The Querença Project used a recruitment tool to form its mission group: opening a public competition and selecting a group consisting of young graduates and/or masters with diverse but complementary training (according to the intervention needs of the territory in concerned), and who submitted to the criterion of staying in the village for a period of nine months (IEFP grant).
The Querença Project created a “dedicated governance” for the project: the promoters set up a local commission and a technical follow-up commission to closely follow the mission group.
3. The Intervention Doctrine of the FP
The Querença Project had a general motto: from theory to action, learning to undertake. It was a pilot action of problem-solving, action-research and group dynamics.
The project had its own doctrine and the following intervention principles:
– Where there is no territorial normality, there must be territorial exceptionality: the territorial rescue.
– Where there is no institutional capital, there will have to be a “dedicated institutionality”: creating a mission group.
– Where there is no mobilizing project, there will have to be a mobilizing territorial pact: launching a local development convention.
– Where there is no social capital, social capital will have to be imported: selecting, recruiting and constituting an interdisciplinary group of young graduates.
– Where there is no stock, there will have to be flow: build an economy of networks and visitation.
– Where there is no continued economic activity, there will have to be discontinued economic activity: setting up an economy of events with strong reticulation.
– Where there is no agglomeration, you will have to create an agglomeration effect: set up an economy of pearl necklaces.
– Where there are no collective actors, collective action will have to be reinvented: setting up a sociology of network actors and clubs in the territory.
– Where there is no conventional funding, there will have to be unconventional funding: build microfinance and crowdfunding engineering
– Where there is no real image, there will have to be a virtual image: create your own imagery and a brand image.
4. The FP intervention method
The Querença Project, according to previous philosophy and doctrine, had a particular method of territorial intervention:
– The choice of a “critical territory”: problems of scale, critical resource thresholds, territorial jurisdiction and conflicts of interest.
– Preliminary evaluation of the resources of the “critical territory”: the territory diagram and analysis of the relevance of the quantity, quality, diversity and availability of pro-resources, anti-resources and counter-resources.
– The constitution of the Mission Group and the matrix of objectives of the Pact: the social capital of the territory, the import of social capital and the constitution of a Mission Group: diversity, multifunctionality and versatility of the elements of the Mission Group, plurality of perspectives analysis, complementarity and functionality of the contributions.
– Local governance of the territory: Forum Aldeia, the Coordinating Committee, the Technical and Scientific Committee, the Local Support Committee; the role of network actors and clubs in the territory.
– The social construction of Querença's “string of pearls”: the operational dimensions of the string of pearls – production, recreation, conservation, marketing, visitation, communication, management – and its main internalities and externalities.
– The social construction of the business project in Querença: the design of the business project specific to Querença – a complementary grouping of one-person micro-enterprises, a production and services cooperative, a limited company, a limited liability company, a rural condominium, a partnership holding company.
5. The Business Project for the village
The Querença Project, under the registered trademark Querença, has at its disposal a very varied field of possibilities that results from a first preliminary analysis of its resources and potential.
As an example, we have the following possibilities: Querença Vales Verdes (biological agriculture), Querença Biodiversity and Landscape, Querença Renewable Energies, Querença, Water Resources, Querença Ecotourism, Querença ASP (agro-silvo-pastoral), Querença Pedagogical Farm and Countryside Adventure, Querença Events, Communication and Marketing, Querença Arts, Crafts and Merchandising, Querença Small Business Management.
The Querença Project, through the formation of “support clubs” in each of these areas, aimed to create the necessary conditions for the emergence/import of “social capital” for the launch of micro-enterprises in those same areas.
II. Querença Smart Village (2018)
Seven years have passed, I think there are now socio-economic and political conditions to return to the general philosophy of the FP and in light of the new technological instruments of the digital economy, for example, geo-referencing, introducing some smart devices and thus improving the quality of life to all, residents and visitors.
The Smart Village methodology can indeed introduce some benefits, here are my recommendations:
1. Saving public and private resources
Digital technologies are able to manage intelligent systems in the areas of energy and public lighting, water and sanitation, mobility and transport, to name just the most common.
2. Healthcare and itinerant services
Digital technologies can monitor vital signs in real time and mobile health services can arrive in time to save lives.
3. Social solidarity network and informal and voluntary caregivers
Digital technologies adapted to senior society can make a difference with regard to quality of life, therapeutic care provided and differentiated and palliative treatments.
4. Nature, environment and civil protection service network
Digital technologies supported by a network of caregivers/volunteers of nature and the environment can make a difference with regard to cleaning, forest surveillance and population safety in case of imminent risk.
5. Local Accommodation Bank/Village Tourism
Digital technologies can easily solve the aggregated offer of local accommodation and all the needs regarding village tourism management.
6. Agro-silvo-pastoral services network
Digital technologies can ease the burden of agricultural operations and save huge resources in water and energy, help make more effective decision-making, plan for more efficient preventive forestry, and organize grazing in a much smarter way.
7. Arts and Crafts Network and Cultural Events
Digital technologies can help program creative and cultural activities and related merchandising and digital marketing activities.
The examples mentioned are digital networks that need a “crowd” to be functionally profitable. Therefore, I also believe that the creation of some network infrastructures – physical networks – that function as a kind of destination markets for visitation is justified.
I give three examples:
– Querença, Vales Verdes: local agriculture in two versions, the first for local supply, the second for niche agriculture, the “Primores de Querença”,
– Querença, Camp Aventura: work and holiday camps for young people from the European voluntary service,
– Querença, Pedagogical and Therapeutic Farm, for the pedagogical learning of the youngest and the active aging of the seniors.
III. Querença Smart Village, a Serralves Foundation for the Algarve!!
A final reference to the most emblematic project for the barrocal mountain range with its geometric locus based in Querença: I am referring to Querença Romântica and to Querença's Imaginarium, which digital technologies can quickly catapult into cyberspace.
In respect for the general missions of the Viegas Guerreiro Foundation, in a line close to the sociocultural anthropology of Prof. Viegas Guerreiro, but also in line with Prof. Manuel Gomes Guerreiro, I wonder to what extent we can use the natural and cultural resources of the barrocal mountain range with the aim of creating a project that reinvents these resources in a more anthropological and cultural perspective, that is, to constitute a project emblematic in Querença, but with a special symbolic attraction and benefits for the population of the entire Algarve.
It is, on the one hand, about reinventing the historical memory of the baroque Mediterranean mountain range, but also to fictionalize its future memory; if we like, I could say that it is about reinventing a Romantic Querença that I here call Imaginarium de Querença and where the visitor, more than an occasional tourist, would be a true pilgrim of the spirit of the time.
In this romantic Imaginarium we would find, for example:
1. The walk to the fountains or water mines,
2. The garden of the senses, landscape arts and living sculptures,
3. The water cycle and the water heritage: water mines, levadas, picotas and storks, water-wheels, wells, fountains, cisterns.
4. Endemisms, biodiversity and the biodiverse circuits of the natura network,
5. Landscape writing, oral literature and local history,
6. Popular architecture, life stories and family itineraries,
7. Special mobility circuits for sensitive groups,
8. Pilgrimages and spiritual retreats to the remote rural Algarve,
9. The plastic arts and the transformation of traditional crafts,
10. Literary landscapes, artistic and cultural residences and the international literary festival of Querença.
I believe this is a project with enormous growth potential, which can be implemented and deployed in many ways and deserves a very special inscription in the space and in the architecture of the landscape that surrounds the parish of Querença and the barrocal mountain range. It would also be the best tribute we could pay to the Mediterranean heritage.
I am convinced that certain entities, such as the Serralves Foundation or the Gulbenkian Foundation, could advise us on the concept, conception and implementation of this project.
And here, once again, digital technologies, in particular, with regard to the production of creative content, would be a valuable aid. The proposal remains.
Final grade
Having arrived here, it is not, of course, about replacing the material networks of the Querença 2011 Project by the digital networks of the Querença 2018 Project.
On the contrary, it is about finding out what is the best network of material-immaterial complementarities in order to obtain another portfolio of assets and a new agglomeration economy for the Barrocal Serra in its fullness.
I want to believe that, in this matter, and in the short term, the union of parishes where Querença is included could manage a “multifunctional digital platform” where each functionality corresponds to one of the aforementioned networks. In the same line of thought, the proposed network infrastructures, as well as the emblematic Imaginarium, will be fundamental to achieve a minimum scale of operations.
Even at the end, it's good not to forget that digital networks need physical “fiber” networks. For good understanding...
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
Comments