Memory and change in representations of Penha: searching for its knowledge

Abstract

This article is the result of recent research on the Penha neighborhood, between the years 2015 and 2016, with the purpose to understand the relationship between its transformations and urban continuities. This neighborhood, located at São Paulo’s east region, comprises the center of Penha itself and its surroundings and presents a recognized historical significance, which manifests through the presence of urban constitutive elements of its identity that have remained over time. Despite its permanence, the neighborhood remains subject to significant changes due to transformations occurring there and urban legislation recently approved, which provides forth its densification. Since the resumption of the concept of urban environmental heritage, research has built tools related to new information technologies in order to identify the representations relating to social memory and to the perception of changing processes in Penha. Therefore, we intend to be able to establish new procedures to understand the neighbor-hood social representations.