Urban cities, youth and conflitcts: Theoretical-empirical questions from Redemption and Acarape

Abstract

This article is part of researches that analyze the impacts of the implantation of a federal public university in two small cities in the interior, Redenção and Acarape, in the state of Ceará. Considering the structure, morphology and dynamics of social production of urban space, students' everyday experiences in cities are analyzed at different scales, including  challenges  experienced  and  changes  affecting  cities.  The  University  of International  Integration  of  Afro-Brazilian  Lusophony  (UNILAB),  which  brings together students from seven countries residing in the cities, promotes profound urban and cultural changes, with significant ruptures in relation to the daily experience lived previously. More specifically, there is a discussion of situations and episodes perceived, represented and faced by groups of urban agents as “problematic situations”, dialoguing with the possible emergence of the public, in particular, the establishment of public arenas in the cities. Based on investigative processes associated to a long-term insertion, including  participant  observation  of  ethnographic  character,  the  article  presents analytical hypotheses and preliminary results. It is considered that young people, by not accepting passively the challenge of occupation and use of the city, reacting to them, institute new dynamics and collective actions that aim at the appropriation, use and occupation of public spaces.