UNIVERSITY, TERRITORY AND SOCIAL PARTICIPATION

Abstract

In the present text, an analysis of the university and the production of knowledge is proposed, considering the socio-political-cultural transformations that have shaped social structures in Latin America over the centuries. Thus, it is important to analyze the university in its relationship with society, in a movement feeling-thinking, linked to the “place consciousness” and with centrality in the territory. Thus, we seek to understand the university as a territory that is dynamic, multidimensional and conflicting, spatially extending in different ways and at different scales. Therefore, this reflection is divided into three moments of analysis: the first discusses the roots of the university and its great historical-political transformations; in the second moment, it focuses on the discussion of “place consciousness” and in the understanding of the university as a territory, and, finally, in the third moment, social participation is approached as a possible and necessary path of approximation and communication between university and regional society. In this sense, we understand that the dialogue of knowledge presents itself as a possibility of doing science, supporting and enabling the construction and strengthening of political, critical, class consciousness linked to the place, to the territories; in the same way, new forms of teaching-learning, focused on the university-community approach, prove to be necessary and important.