MAS BLANCO PROJECT


 In 2000, 50% of the world's population lived in cities. 2020 will be 60% and today in Europe already exceeds 75%.  Capitalism tends to favour some spots in the world, whereas extensive areas become completely abandoned by political and economic interests Some areas in rural Spain hardly arrives to 3 inhabitants/km2, a population density more typical for the Sahara desert, rather than a Mediterranean. Mines, factories, fields, towns, villages, testimonies from past eras and small fragments of culture are slowly disappearing. Recartografías borns as an association and research group concerned by demographic desertification that is occurring in the rural world, as well as urban shrinkage and its consequences, not only in terms of cultural and social impoverishment, but also by environmental degradation that produces for example the abandonment of the Mediterranean mountain that has been run by anthropic action for thousands of years.

Recartografias is an action research group. We are interested from an academic and scientific point of view, following ecologic economy and degrowth ideas, on the study of spaces in conflict and crisis, like shrinking regions and rural areas in decline. We explore the causes and dynamics of the crisis that these spaces experienced. We are interested in how these spaces, long before capitalism came or radically transformed local communities, used to survive: traditional forms of social organization, common-pool resources management, such as water, land or forests, relationships with nature, policy-maiking etc.

We try to apply our ideas on a definite project, the Mas Blanco project, a land stewardship project. Mas Blanco is a small village in the municipality of San Agustín (Teruel, Spain), one of the thousands of villages that became almost completely abandoned due to rural exodus and a good example of commons. Mas Blanco neighbors were commoners. They built their own school and a teacher's house in the 40's to allow their children to have access to basic education in the village. They built as well a communal oven, a wine cellar and they shared partially some activities, such as cattle raising, wine production, logging and of course bread baking. The "Cofradía" was a communal association in which all the neighbors had the right to participate and worked as the local council.  Unfortunately, with rural exodus and new laws introduced to limit traditional forms of organization, the "cofradía" disappeared. The teacher's house, the school and many other buildings began to collapse.

The main aim of the project is the restoration of Mas Blanco as an ecovillage and a renewed common. We first restored the school during almost two years. We organize seminars and workshops in the same place were Mas Blanco's children used to learn. The teacher's house will be a museum about traditional commoning (Masías) in Spain. We will restore as well the communal oven and the wine cellar, in order to use it again. Apart from that we are working on an old field, in order to re introduce traditional agriculture based on cherry, almond, apples, grapes and wheat production. We have land stewardship contracts with the municipality of San Agustin and with some private owners, in order to have the right of use of the buildings and places where we are developing our project. Thus we try to move from academic reflection to action.

Recartografías members are either students, professors, young researchers or volunteers from the municipality of Mas Blanco. As an association, we raise funding selling handcrafts, books, T-shirts. We organize regular visits to Mas Blanco and we are opened to volunteers and visitors. Find more information HERE





Working on the school