Nexos socioecossistêmicos de práticas corporais: potencialidades e desafios de uso cotidiano de um parque urbano no interior paulista

Abstract

This thesis presents and applies the Socio-Ecosystem Nexus of Bodily Practices (NSE-PC) as a way of reading the park in use, that is, how ecosystem services and disservices, infrastructure, and shared meanings combine in everyday practice. The study was conducted at Parque do Bicão (Veraldo Sbampato Sports and Leisure Center), in São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil, with fieldwork carried out between February and June 2025. Fieldwork combined non-participant observation, systematic photo-documentation, and a structured questionnaire (n = 33). The analysis was organized into empirical units defined as scenes and segments of the park, linking descriptive accounts of what was observed to an interpretation guided by the three NSE-PC planes: material conditions, shared meanings, and perceived effects on well-being. Photographs were treated as situated traces and interpreted alongside field notes and visitors‘ stated perceptions. In Bicão, the most persistent tensions clustered around shade, safety, maintenance, and lighting, and appear as ambivalences of use: what supports comfort may require additional attention; what expands the repertoire of practices may introduce frictions. Even so, practices tend to continue through adjustments in time of day, routes, and pace, and the well-being balance is more favorable when the path maintains minimal legibility and predictability. The central contribution is methodological and applied: the NSE-PC offers a traceable reading procedure to prioritize proportional management actions and infrastructural improvements in urban parks.