Developing New Forms of Sociability in the City: Analysing the Neighbourhood Experience in Porto Alegre

The article analyses how groups of people are organizing themselves in order to promote sociability in the urban context of Porto Alegre, a Brazilian town over one and a half million inhabitants. The chosen methodological to do the research was a qualitative approach throught the case study of the “Neighbourhood Project”. The Neighbourhood Project is an experience going on in a middle class área of the city of Porto Alegre, which aims the developement of social relations based on values. It has as strategie, the promotion of “public parties” where common citizens presents gastronomic, cultural, educational, recreational, sports, nature and music activities. The principal means of dissemination used to invite the community to participate of those meetings, are social networks, as well as “body calls the body” and the distribution of printed material in the vicinity that it is supposed to receive the “happning”. This initiative is an invitation to encourage fraternal coexistence between neighbors based on intersubjectivity exchange, as conceived by Habermas, in order to overcome the anomie of contemporany urbain way of life.