Hermeneutics as a strategy in local development processes

Abstract

The purpose of this essay, with an interpretative approach, is to make a retrospective view of hermeneutics with the intention of contextualizing it, in order to appreciate its implications with local development processes. It is based on a documentary review, and intends to be a contribution to the discussion of hermeneutics as a strategy in the processes of such development, and to provide a glimpse of its multiple fields of application. Hermeneutics has often been understood as the art of interpreting written texts and has been in force in human culture since the beginning of civilization, being the object of studies and different visions connected with the development of philosophical thought in history until reaching the progress we know today. Local Development is based on a model that is built by means of the different articulations that are produced and originate from the economic potential of a locality. This is done through the correct functioning of the institutions in the territory and incorporating the territorial dimensions, the history, the structures and the action of the different social actors. The final reflections allow, based on hermeneutics, to respond to the realities of a changing and growing world, aiming at the cohesion of the population through communication and dialogue, not only to solve problems, but also to raise them. Its use can be a vital contribution in the construction of local development, providing the intervened/addressed territory with its own vision of what it has managed to do and where to direct its present and future gaze.