A city-university field in Northeastern Brazil: UNILAB’s case

Abstract This paper initially presents and operates an analytical framework that allows us to critically analyze daily situations experienced in a university, not only formal or academic, stricto sensu situations. This framework is composed by the idea of the city-university field, social provisions, disturbances and problematic situations, the daily life and the experiences, the subfields and incumbents/insurgents. This analytical framework is constituted based on a public federal university, which has been deurbanized and internationalized and is located in small cities in the countryside of Northeastern Brazil. This university is deeply characterized by social diversity, including hundreds of students from African countries. Data was gathered, built, systematized and analyzed based on daily life immersion in the field, focusing on the impacts of implementation of the university in small cities, specially considering the challenges faced by students. Among the methodological resources used, it is important to point out the participant observation, documental analysis, questionnaires, statements and interviews. We conclude that the city-university field aggregates different agents, with subfields, incumbents/insurgents, cognitive schemes and shared meanings, as well as singular ways different agents deal with problematic situations. Besides, we evidence a conflictual centrality in the daily life dynamics, the presence of two cycles between 2011 and 2019 and the existence of persistent tensions between hegemonies and subalternities that are recreated. We understand, this, that this paper positively affects the studies and analyses on higher education and, more specifically, on universities in Brazil.