Feeling of belonging to a place: “Inside Out” film and the dialogue circle proposal

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the results of a research that sought to understand children’s belonging to their place, considering the relationship between human beings and nature from an environmental perspective. This work presents the results referring to the realization of dialogic circles carried out with fifth grade children of a municipal elementary school in Santa Maria, RS, with a qualitative approach based on self(trans)formation research, presenting a hermeneutic approach. For the dialogical process, the Investigative-Formative Dialogical Circles were developed (FREITAS, 2015), of which two of these were chosen for analysis and interpretation that were promoted by the film “Inside Out”. The meetings with the co-authors enabled the movements of dialogic circles, in which themes emerged and suggested by the group were discussed. To understand the facts and dialogues, it was based on the theoretical contributions of Paulo Freire (2021), Gadamer (1997), Henz (2015), Tuan (1983), among others. The results showed that the feeling of belonging to a group or place occurs through lived and shared experiences, through the perception of the pleasant desire for “well-being and staying” and through the values ​​and meanings attributed by the subjects to the environment. The field activities showed strategic potential in the study of the researched phenomenon. The co-authors, in the use of their perceptions, were led to reflect and criticize the reality found, demonstrating the essential valuation and attitudes in the construction of the feeling of belonging to a place or group.