Construcionismo social na América Latina: o instituto Taos e o caso dos trabalhos sociais e comunitários

Abstract

Social constructionism can be characterized as a multiple theoretical movement, articulated around some central assumptions. These assumptions emphasize: the cultural and historical character of the ways of knowing the world; the emphasis on relationships; a notion of language as performance; the interconnection between knowledge and action and the search for reflexivity and construction of alternative futures. Initially focused on the field of social psychology and in the production of knowledge, among the years it expands to different fields: therapy, organizations, and more recently education. However, we can notice that there is less expression in the field of social and community work. Also,although it initially develops especially in the US and European contexts, as it expanses also reaches other locations in the world. Interested in the diffusion movement of social constructionism in Latin America, the objective of this study is to investigate how Social Constructionism is presented among professionals from Latin America who are associate members of the Taos Institute and to analyze the work in the community and social field developed by them. We consider social and community work as a field in which the professionals care aboutand deal with social problems and which interventions with groups and communities are valued, to the detriment of traditional fields of action with the individual. In this sense, supported by the contributions of documentary analysis and content analysis, we characterized the Latin American associates of the Taos Institute, in which the following categories were highlighted: country of origin, professional formation, degree, institution and publication. From the focus on community and social work, bibliographic productions of associates from these fields were collected. The analysis of the publications from this associated produced three axes of analysis: (1) "What production is this?", which characterized the different types of work, thematic and methodologies produced by these professionals; (2) "What are the uses of social constructionism", in which we highlight a use as a theoretical and conceptual framework, a use for practice and the use of practices, and a constructionism influence; (3) and "The use of resources for social and community practices", in which we can see movements to reaffirm consolidated practices - such as the Collaborative Approach, Narrative Practice and the Public Conversation Project - and innovation movements of proposition of new theories and practices - the Generative Dialogues, the Integrative Community Therapy and the Systemic Facilitation of collective processes. Finally, we point out that the data seem to indicate that social constructionism, as a theoretical discourse about the world, offers an intelligibility that becomes useful both as a posture and action for the practice and bibliographical production of professionals. In addition, we propose that by giving visibility to the literature and practices produced in Latin America, these resources can be thought of as forms of inspiration for professionals who deal with different social and community challenges.