The Political-Pedagogical Character of the Popular Movements of the Bairro da Grande São Pedro: advances and retreats under the imperative of the capitalist order
Name: CELIA BARBOSA DA SILVA PEREIRA
Publication date: 30/08/2012
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| MARIA DAS GRAÇAS CUNHA GOMES | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ANA TARGINA RODRIGUES FERRAZ | Internal Examiner * |
| MARIA DAS GRAÇAS CUNHA GOMES | Advisor * |
| MAURÍCIO ABDALLA GUERRIERI | External Examiner * |
Summary: This study aims at investigating the organizational actions of neighborhood popular movements as political-pedagogical practices. The focus was on residents' associations in the Greater São Pedro area. Although the Greater São Pedro area became famous for its poverty in the 1980s, the residents in this area, which is historically stricken by social-spatial segregation, found motivation in adversity to organize popular movements and hence build their history and affirm their citizenship. Today, the Greater São Pedro area is totally changed as far as urbanization is concerned, but it still poses an adverse scenario to residents. In this regard, the importance of residents organization nowadays is essential to fight oppression situations. However, the current picture of popular movements in this area merely reproduces a political-cultural model that is marked by individualism and by traits that are particular of the Brazilian social background. In other words, it is characterized by practices of centralization, dependence, and pork-barrel politics. It is worth highlighting that although these movements also present characteristics of struggle and resistance, the way they actually happen aiming at immediate results, with no broader political content and no interaction with broader movements makes them be expressed as individualized associativism. Therefore, we stress the need of the Brazilian working class to resume, rebuild spaces that contribute to making new leaderships by qualifying the bases of these movements. Then, their participants would be able to achieve a political-pedagogical practices that are grounded on popular education and thus add on to the working class struggle and to the project of counter-hegemony construction aiming at social change. Then, the consolidation of a more equalitarian, fair and truly democratic social project aiming at human emancipation could possibly be achieved.
