Cinema and territory: community audiovisual as a pedagogical strategy for the reconstruction of the social fabric in vulnerable areas

Abstract

This study analyzes the transformative impact of community cinema as a generator of new social bonds in contexts of extreme vulnerability. Its fundamental objective is to answer the question of whether collective audiovisual language can be conceived as a pedagogical and political tool for rebuilding the social fabric. Through a qualitative, Participatory Action Research (PAR) design in three communities on the periphery, and using complex instruments such as audiovisual social mapping and in-depth interviews, the study highlights that cinema is not an end in itself, but a process that strengthens territorial identity and generates a dignified self-representation that challenges and diminishes the external stigmatization imposed by the hegemonic narrative. The three studies conclude that by democratizing access to technology and narrative, a break occurs with the passivity of the viewer, and that community cinema should be considered not only as an aesthetic production, but also as a liberating pedagogical practice. This practice has the capacity to reinstate political agency and socialization in territories fragmented by structural violence or state neglect. This would allow the moving image to be positioned, in these spaces of resistance, as a platform for collective regeneration.