Embrace the Port: an experiment of university-community collaboration

Abstract

This article discusses an experience of participation and collaboration among university, society and community, reflecting on the contemporary processes of collective construction of knowledge and community coparticipation in public projects, as well as collaborative research processes through the formation of networks of researchers, focusing on processes of urban intervention, public management and transdisciplinary community actions. These actions and the resulting reflections are marked by critical thinking about the city, its agents and the practice of urbanism. It is an experience in the scope of the university extension of the UFPB / Proext / MEC-Sesu, carried out between 2015 and 2016. The project went beyond the institutional scope, broadening the reflection on the exchange of knowledge and the frontiers from the ontological and methodological point of view. The methods and forms of coparticipation and resistance resulted in the paralysis and revision of the PMJP / PAC Historical Cities Project, in the recognition of the community as a traditional riverine and, thus, also in guaranteeing the continuity of the collaboration of the riverside people in any urban project and cultural action projected for the area, according to constitutional determination. The “Letters of Desires” and other methodologies put into practice in this experience, as well as the projects resulting from the joint work between community and university, ensured the application of the agreed guidelines, the continuity of actions and the re-elaboration of the urban and architectural projects that have passed to have a continuity solution through the Housing Technical Assistance Law.