Sair da Casa: A participação juvenil num projeto de intervenção comunitária

Abstract

This article explores the dynamics of youth participation based on ethnographic research conducted as part of the "Casa" project, located in Campanhã, in the city of Porto, and funded by the "Programa Escolhas" ("Choices Programme"). The study, conducted between November 2023 and June 2024, as part of the PERICREATIVITY project, aimed to understand how young people experience and represent their participation and to identify the challenges inherent in the process. Methodologically, the research was based on an ethnographic strategy, using participant observation, systematic field diary recording, and semi-structured interviews with young people and technical staff. Some of the main results show a disconnect between the institutional rhetoric of empowerment and participation and the social representations of young people, for whom it translates into more practical terms ("being present," "helping"). Analysis of weekly youth assemblies reveals the potential of creatively appropriating references consumed daily by young people to foster their involvement but shows that this takes place in a "circumscribed arena." The agency exercised ends up having a "low consequence," which generates the perception of a "simulation of power" (Arnstein, 1969), limiting its emancipatory potential. Although the "Casa" project acts as a buffer against social inequalities, it suffers from a lack of connection to broader spheres of power, perpetuating young people's sense of political invisibility and rendering the intervention insufficient to bring about structural change. We therefore propose a rethinking of the models of participation articulated at the micro and macro levels, transforming the internal suggestions of young people into actions of active citizenship in the public space.