This article discusses the possibilities and limits of local action based on the contributions of Portuguese social scientist Boaventura de Sousa Santos as a subsidy to promoting health in vulnerable communities. In particular, the article discusses the concept of structural spaces to understand the proper forms of power, law and knowledge of modern society confronted with increasingly globalized capitalism, with its contradictions and alternatives for emancipatory action. In our opinion, these reflections provide new theoretical and methodological foundations to redirect the local practices of health, en vironment and development. In sum, we consider Boaventura de Sousa Santos' reflections on the dual epistemological rupture; and those of Paulo Freire concerning the unprecedented viable to propose a few guidelines to produce knowledge and the challenge of thinking about the future of these territories among young people in vulnerable community settings, in which borderline survival conditions and violence are part of everyday life and imitate emancipatory actions.
local development; health promotion; vulnerable communities; structured spaces; Boaventura de Sousa Santos
