Overcoming socio-ecological vulnerability through community-based social learning: the case of Lomba do Pinheiro in Porto Alegre, Brazil

Learning in, with, and through the Territory: Territory-Based Learning as a Catalyst for Urban Sustainability

“…While this multi-dimensional framework was considered, the focus of the analytical work and the discussion was on the collective dimension. Particularly, the transformative and social learning processes that took place in the Taquara Stream case within the leading group of the initiative were investigated, see [18,19].…”

“…Eleven participants were selected accordingly with the following criteria: (1) High attendance at the leading group's meetings; (2) key roles in events carried out in the community; (3) ability to foster connections with other collaborators. It should be noted that the group of respondents includes at least one representative from each social actor involved (see Souza et al [19] for further participants' details).…”

“…In contexts of economic constraints and socio-ecological vulnerability, responses to river issues are unlikely to be achieved through solely community-based efforts or bottom-up oriented initiatives [19]. At the same time, formal or technical interventions are generally top-down oriented and arguably lack in promoting participative democracy, territorialized agendas, social conflict resolution, social cohesion, and emancipation and autonomy of local communities [32,35].…”

“…It implies diverse modes of collaboration, forms of appropriation, and power relations [15,16]. From this standpoint, we argue that initiatives aiming at the transformation of the harsh reality engendered by the degradation of urban rivers must be comprehended not just in terms of the desired concrete biophysical changes they should achieve but as actions embedded in territories that deal with territorial issues and all the complexity conveyed by this notion.The search for solutions to such territorial problems implies collaborative efforts and the crossing of boundaries established by actors that act relatively independently from diverse spheres of knowledge and practice [9,11,[17][18][19]. Such boundary crossing can take place when a group composed of representatives of different social actors act in concert, interact and conduct dialogue, critically reflect together, and collectively learn [20,21] so as to co-create sustainability-oriented solutions to tackle urban river-related issues.…”

“…The search for solutions to such territorial problems implies collaborative efforts and the crossing of boundaries established by actors that act relatively independently from diverse spheres of knowledge and practice [9,11,[17][18][19]. Such boundary crossing can take place when a group composed of representatives of different social actors act in concert, interact and conduct dialogue, critically reflect together, and collectively learn [20,21] so as to co-create sustainability-oriented solutions to tackle urban river-related issues.…”