Contributions of social movements to invigorate the public university

The potentiation of political subjectivity

Abstract

In this work, we analyze testimonies of students from a Brazilian public university to understand how the participation in social movements potentiates political subjectivities in relation
to scholarly training. We highlight the connections students produce between academic knowledge and ways of knowing from social movements as they develop their political  subjectivities to effect their social action. We employed a qualitative approach, conducting semi-structured interviews with students engaged in different social movements (women, Black, LGBT and Indigenous people) and analyzing the resulting material through the method of interpretation of meanings. We identified cores of meaning which converge to three central categories: diversity; dialogue; common project. The articulation of these elements led us to understand that reinvigorating the public university from the social movements involves strengthening its character of a dialogue-potentiating space-time which, amid diversity, builds consensual ways of  negotiating collective agendas that guide a consequent
social action in the struggle against inequality. To broaden the repertoires of interpretation of and intervention on social realities, we consider the thematization of social knowledge of humanization as a resource to educate democratic political subjectivities.