The chronology of Jardim São Sonçalo (Tabor)

a community experience of discussion of time and space

Abstract

This article is the result of an extension project that collaboratively raised the chronology of the urbanization process of the Jardim São Gonçalo (Tabor) community, located in the municipality of São Paulo, defined as a Special Zone of Social Interest (ZEIS). The history retold by the population is defended here as a democratic tool for the defense against environmental injustices. The first residents settled in the region, located on the border of Itaquera and São Mateus, just behind the Municipal Natural Park Fazenda do Carmo, in the 1980s, and since then, they have faced floods and environmental vulnerabilities during the rainy seasons. The Municipal Government of São Paulo enabled in 2019 the removal and relocation of several families to housing units in a set of apartments built through the “Minha Casa Minha Vida” program. Beyond the families that were removed, the community fights for improvements in housing conditions. From a methodological point of view, the gathering of information and the development of the timeline, through the reconstruction of the individual and collective memories of the residents of the Jardim São Gonçalo (Tabor) community, involved free observation, conversations, interviews, and the conducting of a workshop. Official documents and legislation relevant to the urbanization process impacting the municipality of São Paulo were also read and analyzed. The theoretical approach particularly considered Acselrad's concept of environmental justice, which argues that combating environmental degradation must be linked to the democratic participation of society. Furthermore, extension here is not limited, as Paulo Freire argues, to the act of extending knowledge, but rather as a process of popular education that deepens awareness of reality, an important step for its transformation. Finally, a website was created with the reproduction of the mentioned timeline and various photographic records.