SOCIAL PARTICIPATION IN SERIDÓ, RN: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC LOOK AT INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES
Citizenship; Democracy; Social Participation.
This research aims to analyze the management councils of public policies in the Seridó region of Rio Grande do Norte, with the objective of grasping their nature, practices, and shared meanings concerning democratic deliberation and social participation. Our proposal starts from the social participation provided for in Brazilian legislation, of an official nature, and intends to construct a descriptive framework of these institutional practices in the municipalities of the region, subsequently capturing the unofficial aspect, according to Pierre Bourdieu. To achieve this, we will conduct documentary research describing the legal-normative framework that regulates the social participation councils in municipalities and mapping the institutional agents and civil society members who are part of the Municipal Education Councils (CMEs). Data collection to characterize this participation will be carried out, in part, through direct observation of the functioning of council meetings and, in another part, through comprehensive interviews with the councilors. For data analysis, we will use qualitative methodology, employing the comprehensive method, aiming to achieve the shared meaning of the action and interaction of the actors in these processes. We hope, with this research, to construct an analysis of social participation in the Seridó region of Rio Grande do Norte, which contributes to discussions about the true exercise of citizenship, corroborating the strengthening of democracy in the Northeast Region of Brazil.