03-02-2025
02-08-2026
Professional Activism (PA) is highly relevant to contemporary life in Europe and beyond, but still a new and under-researched field in Portugal. It refers to advocacy, awareness raising, and other forms of political mobilisation of professionals on behalf of the people in situations of vulnerability with whom they work in educational, social, and community intervention. It implies defending these people’s causes and rights through a socialjustice approach and diverse action repertoire.
Recent and innovative empirical evidence on PA revealed that its relation with the inland geographical context requires further attention and research. Concretely, it suggests that professionals working in inland regions have fewer (diverse) opportunities for PA engagement. It also highlights the need to reinforce the know-how to do PA in these contexts. In addition, much of this work may occur covertly or not be visible enough, so it is crucial to explore, document and promote the visibility of PA in inland regions.
This project addresses these gaps in research and intervention by setting up a unique opportunity to advance knowledge about PA education and engagement in Portugal's inland regions, anchored in the co-creation of a Professional Activism Community of Practice (PA CoP). This PA CoP will encourage professionals to share, collectively organise and act around a common cause. Through this innovative approach, it proposes to achieve a deeper understanding of these understudied phenomena, accomplishing the following objectives: to map and characterise PA engagement and experiences of professionals/organisations working with PSV in inland regions; to deepen knowledge about the influence of the inland geographical context on these professionals (dis)engagement, accessing needs regarding PA education and participation and concrete ways of strengthening these two areas; and to monitor and critically analyse the PA CoP collective lived experience, exploring its educational and politicisation potential.
This project is organised into four complementary tasks, following a mixed methodological design and an action-research-inspired approach. Task 1, 'Outlining evidence and experiences of professional activism in inland regions', integrates a scoping review and a rapid assessment approach, including document analysis, short surveys and interviews. Task 2, 'Co-creating (knowledge on) a professional activism community of practice', implies reflective sessions and practical workshops with a strong artistic component and mobilises discussion groups and ethnographic observation.
Task 3, 'Project follow-up and critical reflection', concerns an advisory group's critical monitoring throughout the project, which will produce recommendations. Task 4, 'Disseminate, boost visibility and build interactive archive', consists of actions aimed at sharing and discussing the project activities and results, namely through the PA CoP Website, including an interactive map of PA in inland regions and a PA resources archive.
It will make an innovative and timely contribution to advance knowledge about PA education and engagement in Portugal’s inland regions by creating an in-depth theoretical, empirical, and practical framework based on these regions that will inform educational, intervention, and research practices in this field.
PCEP - Participation, Communities and Political Education
FCT - Fundação para Ciência e a Tecnologia
2023.12513.PEX
Consultor: Breno Bringel (IESP-UERJ)
Grupo consultivo: Breno Bringel (IESP-UERJ), Cristiana Pires (Kosmicare, CEDH, FEP/UCP), Andreia Nisa (Associação Existências, IPV), Miguel Januário (Artista plástico, ID+/FBAUP)