User participation in architecture and urban intervention

Abstract This paper seeks to understand the specificity and consequences resulting from the adoption of participatory processes in architecture and urban intervention. Participatory processes are understood, here, as proposals that have, as their starting point, sharing the activities of architectural work with the user. We asked if such processes in fact promote the production of a less deterministic space in relation to its use and the emancipation of the individual, and support a sense of belonging. With this intention we analyzed, specifically, the experiences of urban interventions “O Lixo não existe”, proposed by the collective Basurama. These interventions were held in São Paulo during the period 2012-2014 and the analysis will be based on interviews with one of the collective’s members and a participant. To this end, we will seek to draw a parallel between the conception of emancipation/dissent of Jacques Rancière and the psychoanalytic ethics of Jacques Lacan.