PAULO FREIRE AND UNTESTED FEASIBILITY: HOPE, UTOPIA AND TRANSFORMATION IN HEALTH

Abstract

This essay is about Paulo Freire’s “untested feasibility” construct, and it aims to explore its potentialities in collective health. A total of 38 works by the author were analyzed, nine of which discuss untested feasibility, which enables the recognition of the construct’s underlying meanings. Three core ideas were explored for this understanding: the conditions and contexts of emergency of the untested feasibilities; examples; and the meanings of the untested feasibilities. The emergence of untested feasibilities results from a complex pedagogical process, which goes from the defamiliarization regarding reality to the critical perception of the subjects involved, which contributes to the development of untested feasibilities, as a step that precedes action. Even though some of the analyzed works mention examples of untested feasibilities, those were not clarifying regarding the understanding of the possible meanings of untested feasibility. Based on the ideas contained in Freire’s works regarding praxis, project, futurity, dream, utopia and hope, the comprehension of untested feasibility was based on the sense of collective project. We propose a pedagogy applied to collective health that incorporates “untested feasibility” as a possibility of transcending the technical training, which is based exclusively on informational contents, also investing in the capacities of indignation and denunciation and in the development of collective projects.

untested feasibility; popular education; social transformation; hope; utopia