Deslocações

The demolition of the Aleixo neighbourhood between 2011 and 2019 dispersed residents across other public housing estates in Porto. Relocation also disrupted neighbourhood relationships, everyday reference points and spaces for sharing memories. How could those experiences be brought together again and people whose voices rarely shape public accounts of the city be heard?

For students, the challenge is to learn to research with people: to listen, understand their life trajectories and build narratives that respect how they wish to be represented. The practice connects academic learning with community life and makes collecting stories a process of dialogue and recognition.

The practice aims to help students:

• Connect concepts of community, memory, identity and urban inequality with individual life trajectories.
• Prepare and conduct fieldwork, life-history interviews and ethnographic, photographic and audiovisual recording.
• Analyse accounts and build research-informed narratives through text, photography and video.
• Work across disciplines, combining social research, community intervention and artistic practice.
• Make responsible decisions about collecting, representing and sharing stories, respecting diversity and participants.
• Develop autonomy, empathy, communication and teamwork, presenting and discussing findings with different audiences.

Community-based research grounds the practice in former residents’ experiences and perspectives. Oral history and ethnography connect changes in the city with individual trajectories, relationships and a sense of belonging.

Arts-based research adds ways of exploring and sharing knowledge. Photography and documentary film do more than illustrate findings: they help investigate experiences and open them to public discussion. Collaboration between education and the arts allows social analysis to inform creative work and visual approaches to generate new research questions.

The project builds on João Queirós’s previous research into Aleixo and Filipe Martins’s film work in the neighbourhood. Lecturer supervision, ethical preparation and sharing findings with participants underpin the connection between learning, research and public responsibility.

1. Prepare to listen and collaborate. Student groups explore concepts and methods, learn about each discipline’s contribution and agree on ways of working together. They prepare interview guides, equipment and fieldwork protocols, with training in research ethics and legal requirements and contact with project partners.

2. Meet people where they live now. Students conduct life-history interviews with former Aleixo residents, including people involved in the local association. Observation and dialogue are combined with photographic, audio and video recording in participants’ current living environments.

3. Build narratives and share them back. Accounts are processed and analysed to create textual, photographic and video narratives. Discussion with participants provides opportunities to revisit interpretations and involve them in shaping the findings and final outputs.

4. Share within and beyond the university. Reports and presentations form part of coursework. Public dissemination includes the Museu da Pessoa collection and presentation and discussion initiatives. The plan also includes a public event, Portuguese and English subtitles for “Memória Futura”, and a print and digital book.

Teaching teams support students through classes and tutorials. The proposed schedule covers preparation from September to December 2025, fieldwork from January to April 2026, and processing and dissemination from June/July to December 2026.

Assessment is embedded in the courses and follows the research process. In the Master’s in Education and Social Intervention, planned assessment outputs include written life narratives, final research reports and presentations.

Continuous supervision supports discussion of conceptual and methodological decisions, the handling of participants’ accounts and the coherence of narratives. Interim and final collective discussions bring together students from both disciplines to reflect on the process and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Sharing findings back with participants adds a collaborative appraisal of how their experiences are represented. It complements rather than replaces academic assessment. Project evaluation also proposes following up first-year participants in the subsequent academic year to explore the effects on their learning trajectories.

The project’s Museu da Pessoa collection is a growing public outcome. Its stories and materials make former residents’ memories accessible and provide a way to follow the gradual release of results. Content includes “Memória Futura”, “História do Aleixo” and former residents’ accounts.

This extends learning beyond submitting coursework: students’ research and creative work can contribute to collective memory and debate about housing, displacement and urban life. Sharing these accounts seeks to recognise people as participants in the city’s history.

Educationally, the project aims to deepen research, creative, collaborative and community intervention skills. These are intended impacts to be monitored, not quantified learning gains already established. The public event planned for December 2026 and the book publication remain elements of the dissemination plan, rather than completed achievements in this account.

The approach can be adapted to other communities, places and processes of social change. Start with a question that matters to those involved and build a relationship of trust.

• Begin with a small group and a manageable set of stories suited to the teaching timetable and available resources.
• Prepare students for listening, fieldwork and ethical decisions about recording and dissemination.
• Connect complementary disciplines, such as education or social sciences with photography, film, design or communication.
• Allow time to transcribe, analyse and discuss narratives, rather than treating interviews as the whole activity.
• Plan to share findings back with participants and involve them in decisions about final outputs.
• Choose an accessible space for sharing that suits the community, with arrangements for continuity and care of the materials.

Publication should follow a supported process agreed with participants. The pedagogical value lies in relationships and reflection as well as the public output.

Explore the “Deslocações” collection at Museu da Pessoa to discover the results being made available. Its stories, texts and videos offer starting points for discussing memory, identity, residential displacement and public representations of communities.

Teaching materials include interview guides, fieldwork protocols, observation records, photographic and audio/video equipment, transcripts, life narratives and research reports.

Previous research into Aleixo and the Institute of Sociology’s project page provide context. “Memória Futura”, available in the collection, can support screenings and discussion. The collection should be approached as a developing archive, respecting its content-use conditions and participants’ voices.