Life Trajectories and Territorial Change: the Social Innovation of Proyecto Utopía in Rural Colombia

This article analyzes Proyecto Utopia which has been set against Colombia's protracted conflict and rural marginalization, as a territorially embedded social innnovation that couples tuition-free agricultural engineering, housing, psychosocial support, and "learning-by-doing" with a philanthropy-based funding model. Drawing on mixed methods (survey of 251 graduates; 30 interviews; 20 focus groups; ethnography), it shows enhanced employment (78% formal jobs), entrepreneurship (47%), associativity (74%), leadership, and agroecological practices among alumni who return to transform their territories. Conceptually, it traces empowerment across micro-meso-macro levels, arguing that durable rural peace requires hybrid alliances beyond state action.