THE FORUM DIREITO À CIDADE AND THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION:

Limits and possibilities for the collective construction of popular urban policies and projects

Abstract

The experiment report recovers the main activities developed by the Fórum Direito à Cidade as a university extension project, in the year 2022. Dedicated to the construction and consolidation of a space for articulation and technical-popular debate on urban and territorial issues in Natal and its Metropolitan Region, we emphasize here, however, the formative actions that illuminate the possibilities of weaving alternative urban planning practices.We have focused on the already evident developments of the last revision process of Master Plan - generating conflicts around the land regularization of popular territories in Natal and we focus on the construction and participation of the Curso de Formação de Ativistas and the Conferência Popular pelo Direito à Cidade, activities that allowed us to experience the collective construction of new knowledge, new practices and new theories, created from the exchange of experiences between the academic and non-academic community, converging towards the understanding of popular education as a strategy to face setbacks and dismantling of popular public policies, the result of the deepening of an excluding model of society and city, which perpetuate and deepen the perverse consequences of racism, capitalism and patriarchy.