SOCIAL CAPITAL AND TERRITORY: CASE STUDY IN THE COMMUNITY OF YUNGUILLA, ECUADOR

Abstract

The present article evidences the relationship between social capital and economic development in the construction, promotion and consolidation of tourist activity in the Andean community of Yunguilla, located northwest of Quito, capital of Ecuador, in the middle of the cloud forest characterized by its high biodiversity for being part of the Andean Chocó. The research pays special attention to the benefits obtained in the community by promoting its interests and its ramifications, beyond the traditional agricultural and livestock vocation, towards the community tourist field, as an activity that has allowed the improvement of living conditions of its inhabitants and the increase in their income. The research carried out, in the first instance, a theoretical review of the concept of social capital and the binding principles of community based on figures such as trust, cooperative logics and reciprocity to demonstrate the economic effects on the diversification of productive activities and their direct relationship with the community tourism and, in a second instance, the results registered by the community were evaluated beyond the phenomena linked to a development model based on an activity that also faces problems such as limitations for its sustainability and appropriation by the visitor receiving communities. There is a path and a way of life to replicate from the heart of Ecuador.