Organizational characteristics of social and political groups in Latin American cities: a psychosocial study of the need for roots at the urban-periurban frontiers in the territory of São Paulo

• Grant number: 10/51221-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: July 01, 2011
• End date: September 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Social Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Eda Terezinha de Oliveira Tassara
• Grantee: Eda Terezinha de Oliveira Tassara
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims at understanding the creation, the psychosocial dynamics, and the evolution of territorialized groups, as well as their relationship to their environment. It studies the problem of the popular participation at the urban-periurban frontiers at São Paulo city, aiming also at investigating the psychosocial causes and consequences of the civil association in the light of the theoretical concept of the need for roots. Also, it investigates the importance of individual or collective identities for the emergence and permanence of group cohesion. This research will attempt to identify the endogenous and exogenous determinants of the psychosocial dynamics of approximations and separations taking place between individuals and social or political groups. The analysis will be drawn upon data retrieved from the history of the organizations here studied and from the life histories of those group participants, trying to determine the relationship among biographical characteristics, territorial trajectory, organizational characteristics and poetical links. The hypothesis underlying this study is that the articulation of such historical information's can found a qualified description of the political participation in a psychosocial point of view, contributing to the discussions about the need for roots. (AU)