Understanding the boundaries and inclusiveness of urban spaces of Caracas’ barrios through territorial transferral process

When delving into community dynamics and people’s relationship with urban spaces in Caracas’ barrios, several questions arise regarding the nature and use of public and private spaces. How are the private and public defined in barrios? Who owns the urban (public) space? Do public spaces really belong to everyone? The aim of this paper is to present the concept of territorial transferral process (TTP) and its link to the community-urban space relationship. This concept arose as an outcome of my research about place-making. Through interpreting the underlying processes of the activities in the urban space of barrios, it became evident how TTP deeply affects the use and construction of the meaning that people give to the urban space, also impacting the inclusiveness of public spaces. By applying a qualitative approach to understand the participants’ perspectives on the interaction between the barrio community and their urban space, this research showed that the conception, appropriation and use of urban spaces are flexible.These depend on experiences, activities and social relationships. Also, through this research the concept of TTP and its two components, emotional and boundary transferral arose, explaining the complex tangible (physical and use) and intangible (psychological) boundaries that barrios’ urban space embeds