COMUNIX WhatsAppers: The Community School in Portugal and Spain
| Author | Sérgio Barbosa |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920951076 |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Symposium: Democratic Deliberation and Under-Represented Groups |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920951076
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(2) 171 –178
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920951076
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COMUNIX WhatsAppers:
The Community School in
Portugal and Spain
Sérgio Barbosa
Abstract
This symposium article investigates the COMUNIX—Active Participation of Young People in the
Governance of Common Lands—community school. To do so, I analyze how the community
school implemented pedagogical activities based on informal learning, which aims to stimulate
young people to exchange communal and practical experiences. On the one hand, this article
investigates, while thinking through bottom-up educational pedagogies, how underrepresented
youth were challenged to absorb knowledge about common lands. On the other, using the lens of
digital sociology it explores how COMUNIX WhatsAppers appropriated digital media to activate
their participation through deliberation channels. The article is based on a digital ethnography of
group interactions and conversations on WhatsApp chat and Facebook page, complemented by
participant observation. It shows how digital media has come to constitute a key platform for
deliberation during the community school.
Keywords
COMUNIX community school, youth, common lands, WhatsAppers, deliberation.
Accepted: 28 July 2020
Introduction
The COMUNIX—Active Youth Participation in Governance in Community Areas1—was
a project drawn up as a result of a transnational partnership between a research institute
in Portugal, the Centre for Social Studies (CES), a cultural cooperative in Galicia, Spain
(Trespés),2 and a collective property institution in Italy (Partecipanza Agraria de
Nonantola).3 The COMUNIX goal was to create, test, and implement a community school
to provide common knowledge for young people aged between 15 and 30 years, both
male and female, in Portugal and Galicia about the common lands.
Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Corresponding author:
Sérgio Barbosa, Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra, Colégio de S. Jerónimo Apartado
3087, 3000-995 Coimbra, Portugal.
Email: sergiosilva@ces.uc.pt
951076PSW0010.1177/1478929920951076Political Studies ReviewBarbosa
research-article2020
Symposia and New Ideas
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