Narrative, philosophy and reparation in two memory experiences with elderly people. elderly. Arendtian comments for thinking about extension from the perspective of human rights

Abstract

This article shares a series of reflections based on two experiences with elderly people in the framework of an extensionist student assistantship developed within the Elderly Adults Program of the Secretariat of University Extension (SEU-UNC), during the year 2022. In these experiences, strategies around narration and ethical deliberation were articulated with philosophical reflections, promoting the active exercise of the memory of the past and present.

Within the framework of a position of defense for the human rights of the elderly, the work proposes to think about the experiences in dialogue with the readings developed by Hannah Arendt about the place of narration in the intersubjective condition of human existence. It is argued that articulating the extensionist practice with a human rights perspective, which enables the intersubjective and intergenerational encounter, can mean the possibility of democratic agency in the life experiences of the elderly.

In conclusion, the paper proposes to institutionally root the extensionist practice in university teaching experiences. Advocating for a process of extension curricularization, it is argued that such an effort could constitute a significant contribution to the revaluation of territorial practices with extra-university agents.