Social-environmental development and community: one experience to dwell on

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide a set of sources to facilitate a new appraisal of the concept “development”, to be based on a different rationality, sustained by ethical values and to be built upon the intangible heritage of the cultural identity of each human group. The case study portrayed in this work corresponds to a social-environmental development project, implemented within the community of Vila Canoa, a poor neighborhood of São Conrado area, Rio de Janeiro City, by the Interdisciplinary Center for Environmental Studies (NIMA), of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, between March and September, 2005. The article describes the main activities put into practice by the project; reviews the local history; presents and discusses the most important local social clashes; summarizes the community labor frame, and analyses the barriers and perspectives for the socialenvironmental sustainable development of the community.