Critical extension and integrality for the approach of territorial corporal practices in the framework of the transformations of a neighborhood public space

Abstract

The article is the product of an investigation carried out by the university team that makes up the Comprehensive Training Space "Interdisciplinary, Territory and Collective Action" (University of the Republic) in the Flor de Maroñas neighborhood (Montevideo). The objective of the study was to produce interdisciplinary knowledge that would contribute to deepen the exercise of the right to the city in what refers to its neighborhood public spaces, within the framework of the urban renewal processes implemented by the Municipality of Montevideo, through the construction of cultural complexes. The transformations that have occurred in a neighborhood public space related to the construction of a Cultural Complex financed by the Municipality of Montevideo and managed with the participation of neighbors, neighborhood organizations and local institutional actors are addressed. In coherence with a perspective of critical extension and comprehensiveness, the methodological strategy used was action- research, in which the university team participates in the different spaces that make up the process, contributing knowledge and problematization from a partial and situated position. From the results, some reflections are placed that problematize the bodily practices that take place in the Complex from a historical, territorial and gender perspective, to contribute to urban studies on a neighborhood scale, placing in tension the  way in which the bodies are educated in the city. A series of questions are raised that operate as an orientation and reflection guide on university practice.