Archaeology and nature: hyblean cultural landscape and territorial ...

State’s social offer (health, education, welfare), yet there are high levels of inequity and inequality (1). The
district’s downtown is the historical location of ancient urban Suba, where the architectural heritage, history
and identity remain visible. For Bogotá’s Territory Management Plan, this place is considered an area of
cultural interest and thus, its surroundings receive special legal preservation (20).
Suba is one of the most densely populated areas of the city. The ethnic population accounts for 4,5% of the
total population of the district, out of which 0,75% are indigenous. There are two principal indigenous groups:
Kichwa and the larger called Muiscas. The community of Muisca is divided into two groups: Cabildo Indigena
and the “Muisca Nation”. Although only the first one has been officially recognized by the government,
projects for cultural minorities in the area of Suba often include both of them (2).
For this indigenous community, Suba symbolizes their home: a place full of green spaces, where friends and
families meet. This is the place they understand; here they know where are the stores, the parks, the spots
where they can find peace: the park Mirador de los Nevados, the Planada, the central square, etc. It is the
place where they were born and live; there, they have the feeling of being someone living somewhere (22).
The Muiscas, in pursuit of being acknowledged as an indigenous population, celebrate meetings, forums,
cultural activities, and other forms of demonstrations, in which they express their own identity, their projects
and struggles. They inhabit the city while including the nature according to their cosmology and living
notions. For them, mountains, lakes and wetlands are some of the most important elements of the
relationship between earth and human beings (22). In the park, the contributing factor for all of these
expressions to be possible is that the Muisca spirit is printed in the space. There the social function of the
cultural heritage contributes to the renovation and reproduction of the communities (14).
An important characteristic of social sustainability is that instead of being understood as a static process, it is
interpreted as a dynamic socio-historical process (23). The park is the expression of this understanding,
where the social sustainability is promoted on the bases of a place and its communities’ continuous historical
and social processes.
At the same time, the community and neighborhood are the heart of the analysis. This is, the importance of
community participation resides in the space given to its members to express their needs and aspirations
while acknowledging their conception of the place they live (9). The participation processes that take place in
the park are part of the social sustainability framework, in which it is possible for the Muisca people to
maintain a contemporary urban, but yet indigenous, identity and memory.
4. The spirit of place, social sustainability and the park
Under the social sustainability approach, the governmental policies have to be articulated with traditional and
more recent social policies involving the economic and environmental sustainability, but also the community
participation and intangible elements that enrich the soul of the communities (9)(23).
As part of the national constitutional laws, the Colombian Government is bound to recognize cultural
minorities. The government must promote spaces for the minorities to practice and experience their own
cultural, political, environmental and economic path. The creation of the park and its designation as a natural
and cultural heritage site for the city are part of the national efforts to meet this requirement (14). At the same
time, policies for urban planning have been developed by national and local governments under the rubric of
“sustainable cities”: where cities should integrate environmental protection, economic development and
individual welfare and social development, without depleting the natural resources for future generations.
The policies for land use, occupation and expansion aim to prevent the expansion of the city into rural or
protected areas. Sustainable conservation, restoration and natural resources use will support social welfare
and economic development (24).
Although within this governmental policies framework it seems that once again the environmental and
economic issues have prevailed over the social ones, as a matter of fact, the social sustainability principle
has played a leading role in the instauration of the Mirador de los Nevados Park. Since conceiving of the
park, the community of Muisca was fully involved. The planners, designers and promoters of the project,
have consistently worked with community leaders to decide how to protect of the Muisca’s cultural heritage
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