Estrategias económicas, sociales y culturales de los comerciantes otavaleños en el contexto urbano de la ciudad de Cuenca: Plaza de San Francisco

Abstract

The following paper performs a sociological analysis of the Otavaleño merchant as a rational and strategic actor beyond his cultural identity. About 50 years ago, in the city of Cuenca, merchants of the Otavaleño culture have been integrated into the commercial sense of Plaza San Francisco. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to analyze the economic and social strategies deployed by Otavaleño indigenous merchants and the influence in the occupation of urban public space. Consequently, the study was in the city of Cuenca. For this, the mixed approach was used, with a qualitative preponderance, under a case study modality. The techniques used to collect information were: socioeconomic surveys of the 24 merchants who work in the plaza; 5 interviews of the total of 24 merchants; 54 consumer surveys 37 participants and non-participant observation. To validate the data obtained, a triangulation process was carried out. Once the data were processed, we determined that the prolonged permanence of otavaleño merchants is explained around three strategies: organizational, economic and sociocultural. First, the organizational ones, since the construction of social and kinship networks allows them to consolidate socially in a given place; second, economic strategies respond to how their economic activity has developed in the urban public space; and third, sociocultural strategies since they allow combining the resources that their cultural identity possesses to bring it into play with the global market demand. From this it is necessary to say that the permanence of otavaleño merchants in the Plaza de San Francisco is explained by the development of the afore mentioned strategies.