This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), which permits reproduction, adaptation, and distribution provided the original author and source are credited. Strategic Design Research Journal, 11(2): 92-102 May-August 2018 Unisinos – doi: 10.4013/sdrj.2018.112.05 ABSTRACT The following contribution tackles autonomía by relecting on the relationship between culture and space and, therefore, on the multiple actors involved in an urban project. This interaction and involvement are envisioned through the approach termed as ‘cultural co-design’. The work is divided into four main sections. First, the mega-minga, an initiative based on the collaboration between citizens and institutions to produce collective urban spaces in Ecuador, is introduced. This is followed by a critical analysis of the mega-minga itself through the speciic case of the Comuna de Santa Clara de San Millán, located in Quito. The deiciencies and the potentials of this collaborative practice will be illustrated by contextualizing the mega-minga historically, and relating it back to an evolving customary practice based on reciprocity. The third section of the paper looks at the intrinsic characteristics of the minga practice, explores its decolonizing qualities and the opportunity it represents to re-orient main- stream client-based and for-proit urban design practices in Ecuador. The article concludes by turning once again to the case of Santa Clara de San Millán. It envisions a scenario where autonomía is attainable through alternatives supporting a more equitable ‘interaction’ between space, culture, citizens, and institutions. Keywords: minga, cultural co-design, autonomía, Quito. Giulia Testori giulia.testori@kuleuven.be IUAV University of Venice. Santa Croce 191, 30135, Venice, Italy KU Leuven. Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, 3001, Leuven, Belgium Viviana d’Auria viviana.dauria@kuleuven.be KU Leuven. Kasteelpark Arenberg 1, 3001, Leuven, Belgium Autonomía and Cultural Co-Design. Exploring the Andean minga practice as a basis for enabling design processes 1 Introduction On the east side of the Pichincha Mountain, a few hun- dred meters from the Universidad Central and among the many self-built neighborhoods of Quito, lies the Comuna of Santa Clara de San Millán 2 . This neighborhood follows an ancestral communal land tenure scheme, and it is majorly inhabited by low-income people (INEC, 2010). As its legal framework is distinct from other parts of the city, Santa Clara was overlooked by Quito’s municipality for decades (Hopfgarten, 2014; Testori, 2016). Due to their autonomous communal status, inhabitants are exempted from property taxation [impuesto predial]. Despite this exemption, Santa Clara’s residents have to pay all other municipal and state taxes like the rest of Quito’s residents, although these con- tributions do not lead to the provision of public utilities and basic infrastructure. On the 12 th of November 2017, a particular action pro- moted by the municipality - the mega-minga - contrasted its neglect of Santa Clara. According to the municipality, the mega-minga seeks to improve the neighborhood’s common 1 Giulia Testori is an Italian PhD researcher, and the article here proposed is part of her PhD thesis in urbanism. The joint research started in November 2014 at the University IUAV of Venice (promoter prof. Paola Viganò) and KU Leuven (co-promoter prof. Viviana d’Auria) and it is expected to be inalized by the end of 2018. The doctoral research focuses on Quito, Ecuador and is composed of both research and design components. Most precisely the thesis looks at the impact of the Andean collective practice called minga and its potential for renewing the current participatory planning practices by advancing a more culturally integrated approach. The following article includes some of the main arguments developed as part of the doctoral research and focuses on the minga as active form of involvement for citizens to reach autonomía. The research background is the outcome of multiple ieldwork sessions, including both qualitative and quantitative data collection. Viviana d’Auria is Giulia’s co-promoter and Assistant Professor of International Urbanism at the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering Science, KU Leuven. 2 A comuna in Ecuador is a legal and administrative entity, which has speciic communal land tenure and holds the name of the community who lives in it. Comunas have their organic law, legal, social and economic structure and are constituted by a communal government they has sovereignty and autonomy (Romero et al., 1996). According to the current Ecuadorian Constitution (2008), communal land is unalienable, immune from seizure and indivisible (Ecuadorian Constitution, art.57.4). Communal land is intended as a form of property based on the right of use. Comunas are administratively self-governed and managed by the democratically elected members of the cabildo. Decisions concerning their territories are taken through assemblies (Romero et al., 1996; Rayner et al., 2015; Hopfgarten, 2014; Testori, 2016).