Higher Education and Extension from a Human Rights Perspective

Abstract

From a Human Rights perspective, working in and with territories implies moving away from the  classical paradigm of Extension; where the  university goes or goes out to the territory to  transfer its knowledge, ignoring the histories and  knowledge of the communities with which it  works and interacts. Whereas, from a critical  conception, it inherently implies the gaze of  human rights. Working with the territory is  understood from a "meeting of knowledge". As  Abratte argues, "Conceiving Extension as a  dialogue of knowledge implies an ethical and  political stance and, at the same time, a  pedagogical position." From this perspective,  territories are conceived as spaces in which  horizontal relationships are promoted between  knowledges that, configured in multiple contexts  and registers, can coexist and enrich each other in collective work. These links of exchange of diverse knowledge, built on the basis of differential logics, find in the space of the Extension a fertile ground  for collective construction. Heir to Freirean  pedagogy, it is based on the recognition of an  educational link between social subjects who are  bearers of knowledge willing to dialogue.