Moscovici’s Theory of Social Representations and Freirean Communicative and Dialogical Theory: Epistemological Convergences

Abstract

This article analyzes the epistemological approximations between Serge Moscovici’s Social Representation Theory and Paulo Freire’s communicative and dialogical perspective, problematizing how these frameworks contribute to recognizing popular knowledge as a legitimate way of understanding reality. The study discusses the production of knowledge in everyday life and the need to overcome epistemological approaches that disregard lived experience, the history of oppressed subjects, and their ways of interpreting the world. It aims to understand how the categories of epistemic subject, knowledge, language, listening, and hope constitute articulating dimensions of an epistemology committed to dialogicity, social experience, and the transformation of reality. This is a bibliographic study with a qualitative approach, mainly grounded in the contributions of Moscovici (2015), Jodelet (2017), Freire (1980; 2013), Oliveira (2015; 2016), and Ornellas and Oliveira (2022). The results indicate that Social Representation Theory and Freire’s perspective converge in valuing subjects as producers of knowledge, recognizing experiential knowledge, and defending educational practices guided by listening, dialogue, and human emancipation.