The territory beyond social construction: subject-universe synthesis and involvement in favor of life

Abstract

It is interesting and intriguing how the concept and category of territory is increasingly diffused between different areas of knowledge and, in certain spatial and temporal situations, in political discourses and management strategies. Use, planning, management and development of the territory are highlighted, however, they are normally used in a superficial, confusing and inappropriate way given the complexity and indivisibility of society-nature-cosmos and time-space relationships. So, on this opportunity, we decided to discuss and reflect on the territory beyond its understanding as a social construction, highlighting two issues that we consider to be of high social and scientific relevance, that is, its breadth and indivisibility at the level of the subject-cosmos relationship (trans-multiscalar and transtemporal) and its intimate relationship with our daily life (in its pluridimensionality), therefore assuming a meaning that we consider quite renewed, at the level of what we are calling territorial involvement. This is understood based on the society-nature-cosmos relationship from the university, that is, from research, training and extension: this way we can go beyond the level of the territorial approach, involving ourselves in each territory studied. Our objective is to reflect on the centrality of the university in its relationship with organized civil society, highlighting the necessary integration between science - popular and original knowledge in each process of territorial and sustainable involvement for all beings on this planet in their unity with the cosmos. Another highlight, in the theoretical-practical perspective that we will argue, is participatory-action research closely related to the method of coexistences, as we will detail throughout the text, trying to instigate the debate on the horizontal, dialogic and participatory construction of a science of its own, increasingly ours, much more focused on solving problems that are common in our daily lives.