This paper proposes a reflection and analysis about how creative and artistic experiences can encourage social networks, dialogue, expression and an opportunity for young people involved to be protagonists of processes of citizen participation, collective action in the context of the public space of their city and in their school. It is also intended to analyze in what way these creative practices can facilitate teamwork and learning in non-formal and socially vulnerable contexts. Some of the challenges are to promote research skills, develop creativity, human and social relations and participation between the young group. Similarly, it is relevant to contribute to a reflection and a discussion about citizenship education, social ties, social justice and co-production of social knowledge.
The research project, on the basis of this proposal, intends to understand how young people from Porto relate to their city, what social ties they establish among themselves and the community and if and how they practice citizenship. Highlighting current issues related to social, political and economic tensions and instabilities and how it affects young people, regarding the building of social ties and the conjecture about youth apathy and lack of interest towards conventional forms of citizen participation and political issues, this project brings to the fore a close perspective of a group of young people based on creative, participatory and collaborative research processes.
In the context of today's European society, between the diversity and the inability to mitigate the inequalities and social injustices (Santos, 2005) we face the challenge of inclusion and social justice. We also verified there has been a weakening of community relations, horizontal social ties and solidarity (Paugam, 2001). The city is faced as a place of human and social relations, becoming therefore also a living and dynamic territory of sharing, communication and interaction (Lefebvre, 2008). However, at the same time, the urban spaces are one of the targets of unequal appropriations, which, for the most part, instigate asymmetric power relations and situations of social exclusion (Young, 2002; Queirós, 2007). In Porto, like other European cities, these tensions are felt. In this context, the role of networks and social ties in the process of social cohesion and political participation are fundamental for the composition of a solid core of connections, where spaces of dialogue about public issues and interests are provided (Iglic & Fábregas, 2007).
Considering the relevance of citizenship practice, intercultural education and that young people may have an important role in the development of the communities, it is imperative to do a deep and transversal reflection about aforementioned issues, given how they may affect the current society.
Young people make up a social group constituted by a diversity of identities and cultures, essential in the construction of communities (Pais, 2003). In a set of transitional processes, "undergoing several tensions, young people seek to construct biographies" (Silva, 2010, p.35) of themselves, designing different paths and possibilities, testing and appropriating resources for expression and representation of their multiple subjectivities and ways of seeing and living the world, namely their relations with the society that surround them and the construction of their actions as social and political actors.
The affirmation and practice of the rights of citizenship of the young people is an opportunity for these groups to use several resources, to light up their voice, creating new forms of expression and action contributing for new educational experiences and social intervention (Madeira, 2013). Thus, recognizing the diversity of young people and considering the multiplicity of their voices and the contexts in which they are produced is a way of understanding how these young people build their citizenship (Macedo, 2018).