Community Engaged Research in an UNESCO World Heritage Site

Abstract

With this paper, we wish to share the experience of an arts-based action research intervention in the Sofia Street, in Coimbra (Portugal), a city street that was inscribed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. This intervention is part of the bigger action-research project named Arteria (2018-2020), where we wish to explore the possible connections between the artistic practice and the field of social science. In this paper, we describe how the field research, which took place in this street (the preparation of community workshops and their implementation), offers a process of methodological exploration on how social science methodologies may be articulated with the processes of artistic creation. We show how this can be done by developing innovative approaches to cultural participation through the process of immaterial co-creation of knowledge. At the same time, we share reflections on how the artistic intervention may have an impact on the social and cultural transformation of Sofia Street.