Sustainability as practice: an ethnomethodological and sociomaterial look at the waterfront of João Pessoa, Paraíba

Abstract

This paper analyzes sustainability as a sociomaterial practice at the waterfront of João Pessoa from its everyday life and from the actions of its Management Committee. Authors understand sustainability as a daily sociomaterial practice that was not prescribed, and which emerges from, perpetuates and is modified through daily interactions between humans and non-humans. According to sociomateriality, these are the constitutive elements of all social reality. Authors present the ethnomethodology approach as an alternative to study the issue – ethnomethodology can be understood here as a theoretical approach to practice studies, as well as a methodological approach to understand everyday life phenomena. Therefore, the practice was ethnomethodologicaly investigated to check its daily accomplishments from which authors aimed to comprehend how this practice happened in the context of João Pessoa’s waterfront. Methodological procedures included participation in meetings with the Management Committee of the Waterfront and visits to the waterfront – when authors observed how sustainability guided the actions of local social actors. The examples of the Picãozinho Island and the revitalization of the Gameleira’s Square were presented to point out how sustainability might be a result of the actions and interactions between human and non-humans, since humans, as stakeholders of the researched space perceived not only the need for change, but also negotiated it,  contributing to the social reality.