Political engagement in urban agriculture: the power to act in the community gardens of São Paulo

Abstract

In recent years, urban agriculture has proved to be an important solution to many issues relating to the promotion of food and nutritional security, poverty eradication and sustainability in general. Recently, the city of São Paulo has stood out for presenting an innovative social process of creating and consolidating communal gardens autonomously and self-managed by citizens, using social networks to organize and articulate practices and interventions in an activist way. These groups present horizontal forms of organization that are confronted with the bureaucratic practices of state organization, generating conflicts in the management of public spaces and in the recognition of these initiatives by the public power. Despite the vast literature on urban and peri-urban agriculture and given the innovative character of the process initiated in São Paulo, there is a lack of research on how these groups are organized and how much they contribute to the democratization of the management of these public spaces, bringing The discussion from Spinoza's concept of power of action. It is of interest for this research to investigate if the movement of community gardens existing in São Paulo has contributed in its practice to citizen engagement in the construction of public policies and for the democratization of the management of public spaces of the city, expanding the functions of urban gardens Besides the supply and production of food.In the various meetings and events promoted by these groups, is it possible to consider that there is the construction of social and political capital that bring significant changes to local territorial management? Do citizens, insofar as they actively participate in the production of their own food, even in a symbolic way, engage in an in-depth way in the construction of public policies for the localities in which they act? Through a qualitative research, this research will seek to shed light on these issues and contribute to the understanding of the role of urban gardens in urban territorial management. (AU)