Abitare la soglia. Tra scuola e città per la giustizia ambientale a San Francisco de Limache, Cile

Abstract

In a global context marked by deep social, territorial, and environmental inequalities, schools can play a strategic role as educational and civic infrastructures capable of promoting forms of environmental justice rooted in situated knowledge and relations of proximity. This paper offers a reflection based on field research carried out in the municipality of Limache, Chile, in collaboration with the Fundación Escala Común as part of the PAMEPI project (Plan de Activación de Movilidad y Espacio Público para la Infancia). Through participatory methodologies, the project engaged children, families, schools, and local actors in the re-signification of everyday urban space, identifying the threshold spaces between school and city as key sites for ecological regeneration, active mobility, and collective use. The analysis focuses in particular on the educational and transformative potential of school-proximate spaces, understood as distributed and relational devices anchored in the school’s public infrastructure, capable of activating practices of care, ecological learning, and environmental citizenship. Precisely for these characteristics, such spaces emerge as tools of environmental justice that resist the extractive logics of green gentrification, fostering inclusive practices deeply rooted in local contexts. The contribution positions itself within the debate on environmental justice in the Global South, questioning the relationships between education, urban space, and socio-ecological transition.