The PIRI Rural Interdisciplinary Internship Program

Critical review of an experience of linking the University and the Territory in southern Chile

Abstract

This document gives an account of a university bonding experience, with a situatedcharacter, called the Interdisciplinary Rural Internship Program (PIRI). It refers to thefield of professional training in health, particularly in the field of community publichealth and local development. In the first section, the territory in which the PIRI isimplemented and developed is described, giving an account of its socio-historicalcharacteristics, in a cultural key. Subsequently, the historical journey is shared, fromthe origin to the main dimensions that make up the epistemic, methodologicalapproach and the actors involved.In a third moment, he realizes the territorial, local and international relations that thePIRI has established over the years, highlighting the characteristics of the territory asa learning scenario. In the final part, the reversive role of the program is proposed anddeveloped, understood as a creative counterproposal, which faces university businessscenarios, to finally reflect on its decolonial and counter-hegemonic contribution, asa space for the revitalization of collective health, with special emphasis on the LatinAmerican influence that defines it.