Towards an integrated conception of locality and community for the development of the municipalities in Cuba

According to some contributions of Sociology in Cuba, the Special Economic Period reemerged to the territorial scenario as a setting of social heterogeneity, expression of disadvantages, inequalities and making of strategic decisions. The Cuban economic reformation of the 90"s according to the interests of the Cuban Revolution"s Social Project conserved the hegemony of the State"s property and public services and introduced quotas of decentralization in favor of industry managers and local governments. It also has enlarged the margins of not state economic agents and the market´s distributive action. However, although this reformation is centered on justness, its social impacts have a marked character of selectivity and social differentiation.

According to the opinion of the specialists Mayra Espina and Aymara González, the Cuban initiatives regarding local development have been limited because of some conditionings such as: the oscillation, centralization and decentralization of the economic model and the resulting sequels that impede the inclusion of variants for local self-transformation in a plan. This plan is characterized by the limited integral planning of the territory, the insufficient conjugation among the ministry and territorial aspects and the inadequate active character of the territorial planning.

The main obstacles for the initiatives of local development in Cuba are related to:

. Hierarchical prevalence of the strategic political definitions.

. The verticalism and sectarianism in the institutional relationships.

. The insufficient preparation of the actors to develop self- transformative actions.

. Centralized guidelines to do the expenses in the municipal budget.

. The limitations of local governments to make the companies of national subordination responsible for the necessities of their territories.

. Limitations to achieve the people´s participatory culture.

. Authoritarianism in the community actions.

. Limited space conceded to local economy projects and non state economic agents.

Some advantages for the local development can also be confirmed in our country:

• Mature political system with more potentiality for the socialist democracy.

• Revaluation of the participatory action in the local context

• Improvement of the activity of social and humanistic sciences.

• High level of the people´s instruction

• A representation of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA) at local level.

• Academic and scientific support for the development starting from the municipalization of the University.

• Local productive reserves

• A basic services structure.

Everything positive about the space consideration of the development (the locality as an organizational instance of this process) as well as the development strategy of our municipalities should be articulated with the need that some links and social relationships with emancipating content must be built up in the process of empowerment and concrete realization. It means that the community quality of these relationships is considered the essence of any effort for the development, having this noun (development), any adjectival use.

The concept of community in its common definition has had as unique referent the locality (village, small region, municipality,) and as recurrent qualifier the basic cultural identity. According to these premises, "community" has been assumed as a present reality as much as in the theory as in the practice. From this point of view the community development implies to promote actions of improvement, adaptation and functioning.

According to our considerations, the community is an epistemic concept that helps to understand the essentiality of the social movement toward the emancipation, toward the free development of the human personality as a social act.

We assume community as a social group. The links and relationships of this group are mediated by processes of participation, cooperation and implication. Those processes facilitate the development of a critical awareness to identify and to face the contradictions of the daily life uneasiness. This critic awareness has a proactive and projective character and it is concreted as a material tool through the creation of projects of self-development, gestation, production, and construction of community. It means it is a material tool of the socialist quality of social relationships in the different areas of the political and civil society.

The conception of community of the Community Studies Center of the Central University Martha Abreu de Las Villas, does not limit community (a space for basic relationships of people) to a place of existence, for example neighborhood, town and so forth. This conception centers as substantive qualities some processes of human interaction such as participation, cooperation and conscientious selection of a life project through the principle of self-development. We start from a definition which is not constituted from an ideal image where the specific scenarios subjected to scientific examination should fit or not. This is assumed as a quality in movement that allows us to take our actions of community development developing processes of cooperation and participation. This is done by means of the development of people's critical awareness. This critical awareness will help people to react to their reality so that they assume the protagonist role that corresponds to them as part of an emancipation project. The essential referent of this project is the very same project of the Cuban Revolution.