THE COLLECTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF CARE

HEALTH CONFERENCES AND SOCIAL PARTICIPATION IN THE UNIFIED HEALTH SYSTEM

Abstract

Introduction: Health conferences serve as spaces for social participation and deliberation within the Unified Health System (SUS), but they can also take on a largely unexplored educational dimension. This is a theoretical essay in which the authors’ experience with health conferences serves as a site of engagement and a reflective framework, linked to the literature on social participation, continuing health education, popular education, micropolitics, and care, as well as to the narratives drawn upon. The reflection is organized around two axes: the conference as an arena for deliberation and as an educational space, considering, in the latter, the learning experiences mobilized by students’ participation in monitoring activities during recent national health conferences. Objective: To reflect on health conferences as spaces for social participation, teaching and learning, knowledge production, and the collective construction of care within the SUS. Development: The analysis shows that the conferences go beyond a deliberative function, serving as spaces for dialogue, collective learning, civic education, and the shared production of knowledge. It also reveals challenges related to representation and conditions for participation, especially among technical Workers, as well as the ambivalence of the learning that takes place there, which is not always emancipatory. Conclusion: Conferences can be understood as pedagogical and democratic spaces that are fundamental to the collective construction of care, the strengthening of social participation, and the defense of the SUS.