Critical extension as a praxis for rural development in the interior of Buenos Aires

Abstract

Extension is one of the most challenging teaching functions, however, personally, the first experiences were carried out more from intuition and conviction, with the firm position that the University must be challenged by the realities of the multiple territories that cross it and contain it, to contribute to the construction of a more just society with fewer inequalities. In the actions, new questions and demands arise that are resolved with good will, but that require other types of methodological tools that guide territorial intervention and facilitate the extension role. In this sense, in teacher training in extension, a teaching-learning process is carried out, which not only provides tools for extension praxis, but also challenges and puts into tension the praxis in other functions, teaching and research, promoting new dialogues and connections that today lead towards integrality. Likewise, it promotes teamwork and interdisciplinary work. In the rural area and in the particular case of the Buenos Aires interior, the topic chosen for this reflection, the extension praxis acquires certain difficulties typical of a rurality that has gone through the processes of depopulation, the concentration of agricultural production, the hoarding of land and environmental deterioration. The problems are there, but they are invisible. Based on training in university extension, dialogues of knowledge and new questions for intervention from critical extension are presented in this reflection.