The PRAXIS (Social Practices in Urban Space) group from the School of Architecture at UFMG, coordinated by Professors Denise Morado and Daniel Medeiros de Freitas, has just released the e-book “Social Practices in Urban Space: Paths and Developments of the PRAXIS-EA/UFMG group [2009-2022]”, to celebrate its 13 years of activities.

The e-book “Social practices in urban space: paths and developments of the PRAXIS-EA/UFMG group [2009-2022]”, is available for free download through this link.

The e-book approaches the works presented at the PRAXIS 10+ Seminar, between April and May 2022, an event that is part of the Research Groups Program of the Institute of Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies at UFMG (IEAT/UFMG), with support from the Behner Stiefel Chair of Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, the Graduate Program in Architecture and Urbanism at the School of Architecture at UFMG and the Design & Education Extension Project (EA-UFMG), supported by CNPq.

The videos of the PRAXIS+10 Seminar are available on the IEAT YouTube channel. In addition to graduate students and researchers from PRAXIS-EA/UFMG, professors Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo (Universidad Javeriana Bogotá, Colombia), Amira Osman (Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa) and Krzysztof Nawratek (University of Sheffield, England), as well as external mediators, Doctor Cleide Nepomuceno (Public Defender of Minas Gerais), Jobert de Paula (activist in the struggle for housing), Fernando Maculan (architect), Gisella Lobato, Izabel Dias and Luciana Moreira (Belo Horizonte City Hall) participated in the PRAXIS+10 Seminar. The critical report of the seminar was made by Marina Sanders and Professor Thiago Canettieri, from the School of Architecture at UFMG.

Marina Sanders Paolinelli and Thiago Canettieri, who signed the book’s afterword, emphasize that the discussions presented at the PRAXIS 10+ Seminar and in the e-book contribute to revealing the limits and contradictions of a certain ordering of space, dominated by the social forms of capitalism, approaching the practices and discourses mobilized by various agents who work in different contexts of the city – whether in its so-called “formal” face, in which capital, the State (and urban planning) determine the rules of the game; or in its so-called “informal” face, where social groups excluded by these same rules create and recreate ways of living and living.

About PRAXIS-EA/UFMG

The PRAXIS-EA/UFMG group was born in 2009, registered at CNPq and at the Department of Projects of the School of Architecture, under the coordination of Full Professor Denise Morado of the School of Architecture at UFMG, with teaching, research and extension projects financed and supported by different entities, and partnerships with residents from various parts of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, social movements, networks of researchers from several national and international universities.

The group’s performance is guided by the critical perspective regarding the power relations that structure the practices of production of urban space; the determinations coming from the social, economic, political, cultural, environmental and institutional fields; the neoliberal city model; and the instruments and mechanisms of analysis, representation and intervention in cities. Since 2019, the PRAXIS-EA/UFMG group has participated in the IEAT Research Groups Program. More information on the PRAXIS-EA/UFMG website.