Comments: Luciane Lucas dos Santos (Ecosol-CES)


About

The regeneration of public urban spaces in peripheral areas by the URBiNAT project (on-going), funded under the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme, provides empirical evidence to support the arguments that the Solidarity Economy (SE) contributes to the socio-economic adaptive capacity of nature-based solutions (NBS). There are indeed many opportunities in the relationship between ES and the perspective of inclusive urban regeneration, especially when we consider urban neighbourhoods situated in a set of complex cultural, socio-economic and emotional relations. Four main aspects demonstrate that: (a) SE is grounded on territoriality and stimulates the connection with physical space; (b) the interdependence between SE and nature is reinforced by the fairer and more conscious perspective of production and consumption; (c) questioning economic inequalities in the territories contributes to the promotion of equitable access to resources, (d) SE stimulates new forms of sociability and connection with the community based on the democratic management of initiatives. The Solidarity Economy component in Sofia's Healthy Corridor strategy (as a cluster of NBS) in the Nadezhda district is marked by various practices such as the Repair Café, the Bread house and the Farmers Markets network. This session will discuss the relationship of ES to the healthy corridor and the practices employed to reconfigure public space, constituting more than a "green solution".

Bio note

Beatriz Caitana is a sociologist and researcher within the URBiNAT project at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra (UC, Portugal). She is currently a member of the scientific coordination of the H2020 URBiNAT project, which focuses on the inclusive urban regeneration of social housing neighbourhoods of 7 European cities through the implementation of nature-based solutions in public space, as a result of a co-creation process involving municipalities, stakeholders and population of the intervention areas. she is a permanent member of the study group on Solidarity Economy - Ecosol/CES. She collaborated in the PATHS project - Youth for Solidarity Economy and Entrepreneurship in Europe, supported by the Erasmus + programme, as well as in the Social Innovation Platform (PIS), supported by the Compete Programme and POA FSE/FCT. She is a founding member of the academic social incubator of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (ISFEUC), and was a visiting professor of social and solidarity economy at the Polytechnic of Leiria (Portugal). Her PhD thesis, currently in elaboration, focuses on alternative economies, namely social and solidarity economy, social incubation and co-production initiatives. Her professional training and areas of expertise also include the management of social projects for national and international non-profit organisations in Brazil, dedicated to the promotion and defence of the rights of children and adolescents in various contexts, such as urban, indigenous and quilombola communities, as well as the development of social indicators and tools for monitoring and evaluating public policies for childhood.

Activity under ECOSOL-CES