Urban activism and cultural heritage

Abstract

Is it possible to think of another role for cultural heritage in cities that is not necessarily linked to their reconversion in spaces of cultural entertainment, towards recovering the value of central areas and gentrification? Is it possible to have an urban activism that transforms cultural heritage in a source of reflection and counterpoint to processes of urbanization as a business? This article aims to answer these initial questions from the exposition and discussion of an experience that is being developed in the city of São Paulo and has the objective to gather arguments and produce narratives in defence of the permanence of poorer social groups in city centers, using cultural heritage against gentrification. Such experience fits a kind of urban activism that has educational actions in the field of cultural heritage as an essential tactic. In this sense, it affirms the need to democratize heritages and also memorialization processes which have produced, over time, an invisibility of certain social groups, among which are workers and poor inhabitants of city centers.