The social process of participation in the public sphere

In this presentation, based on interviews with social actors who are part of the Council Plan (CONPLAD) in the municipality of Pelotas, a city of Rio Grande do Sul, as well as residents of peripheral lots of Pelotas, intended understand the dynamics of participation of social actors on the importance of representation on the board and understanding the experience of acting in the public disputes of proposals for development. Attentive to the processes and outcomes of interactions between civil society organizations and state and market systemic (AVRITZER, 1994, 2004; COHEN, 2003; LAVALLE, 2006, ALEXANDER, 1998) for the formulation of public policies. Therefore, we evaluate whether or not the difficulties experienced by social actors to see the practical recognition of their right to the city. To this end, we propose to know the social conditions of production of different points of view and the di-visions of perception and representation of the city, it being understood that these positions of the actors are shaped by symbolic capital based on the amount of economic capital and global cultural and the relative weight of capital acquired by each of them (BOURDIEU, 1997, 1998) within the field of social relations and reproduced in everyday actions.