A política da ponte como ponte para a política: o papel do FAMA na promoção da cultura política e o engajamento cívico no bairro Malweka (Luanda/Angola)

Abstract

The politics of the bridge, as a bridge to politics, is based on the understanding that young people in the Malweka neighborhood in the province/state of Luanda in Angola feel abandoned by the local government, considering, for this study, the non-maintenance of the dilapidated bridge that is the only access route to the neighborhood. That said, this study investigates FAMA's role in promoting a participatory political culture and civic engagement for young people in the Malweka neighborhood, in terms of political participation. In this sense, we sought to understand: how does the deterioration of the bridge become a bridge to politics, from the point of view of Angolan youth? In order to delimit the research, the aim is to point out the extent to which participation in political life is important for FAMA members, advocating local socio-political change and transformation. The case of Ponte is presented as the object of this research, since it is through Ponte that Forças Ativas do Malweka (FAMA) emerged as a civil society movement and/or organization. In order to consolidate the theoretical field of this research, we used as a theoretical-conceptual reference the approach to political culture and civic engagement from the perspective of authors such as: Rennó (2003); Putnam (2006); Baquero (2008); Castro (2008); Almond and Verba (1989), among others. For this study, we opted for qualitative research, taking into account the debate in the social sciences, focusing on the field of political science. To this end, the approach adopted for data analysis and interpretation is the case study. The primary sources were interviews and FAMA's digital social networks. The text concludes by pointing out that: the politics of the bridge, much more than a question of resolving or building the dilapidated bridge, has presented itself as a plural proposal, which contributes to awakening the political awareness of the young people of Malweka to build a new political culture and, at the same time, has allowed FAMA to trigger other social and political demands for the Malweka neighborhood.