Patrimônio cultural, políticas públicas e participação social no município de Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul (2006-2016).

Abstract

This study investigated the mechanisms of social participation in Pelotas (RS-Brazil) - councils, conferences and public hearings which were influenced by the constitutional change brought by the constitutional amendment n°71/12. Such amendment innovated the legal order as it established that the public policies regarding the patrimony should contemplate the social participation and that this should be done by groups of social control which would have decision-making powers (article 216-A, § 2º, II, III and X of the Brazilian Federal Constitution). This study also tried to verify how these organisms are organized/composed and understand how this participation contributes to the implementation of memory and heritage policies in the city, bearing in mind what is the real feeling toward the patrimony in the city. Such expansion in the concept of cultural patrimony introduced new challenges that need to be faced to make this new cultural constitutional policy become effective, being necessary to consolidate the social participation by acting and listening to the different parts involved, as advocated by various Patrimonial communications and several national and international legal instruments. The performance - deficits and potentialities – of the participatory institutions reveals under which conditions this participation may contribute to the patrimony policies. The correlation among the government, the participative institutions and the public policies will allow the understanding of the way the patrimonial processes have happened in Pelotas (RS-Brazil) and the relevance of the institutions in this process. Such relevance extrapolates the cultural and political fields, as the judicialization of the public policies has been frequently present in the courts of law regarding various subjects. The answers to the questions above were the aim of this interdisciplinary study (cultural, political, legal and administrative fields). The methodology was based on quantitative reasoning and qualitative. The relationship between the spaces and the local and national cultural policies and the process of democratization was also evaluated. It was possible to map the actions of the cultural participative institutions in the process of democratization of the city, which aims at improving their participation regarding the solution of the problems and challenges faced by the patrimonial diversity and their representatives. Finally, it was possible to say that the participative institutions in Pelotas do not act effectively due to the way the government interacts with these institutions, which contributes to the fact that the patrimonial processes are guided by the State will, considering the collaboration of the community – article 216 of the Federal Constitution – as an accessory of little significance.