Hacia una reconstrucción de la acción comunicativa en la gestión de la municipalización de la UNEFM

Abstract

This study aims primarily to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the management of National Training Programs (PNF) at the National Experimental University Francisco de Miranda (UNEFM). The analysis is carried out through Jürgen Habermas’s theoretical lens of communicative action, seeking not only to describe administrative processes but also to re‑signify university managerial praxis within the specific context of university villages. In these spaces higher education undergoes a process of territorialization, where the traditional campus dissolves to integrate into the socio‑political reality of local communities. Accordingly, this research explores how management can shift from an exercise of vertical control to become a bridge of intersubjective understanding. The selected methodology rigorously follows a socio‑critical paradigm oriented toward transforming social structures through self‑reflection by involved actors. A qualitative approach and hermeneutic method are employed to interpret discourses and underlying meanings in managerial work. For data collection in‑depth interviews were conducted with coordinators and key managers in the municipalization area— individuals who possess direct experience mediating between institutional regulations and community reality. Preliminary results highlight a concerning trend toward bureaucratization of management—a phenomenon Habermas would describe as “colonization of the lifeworld” by the administrative system. This procedural rigidity limits emancipatory dialogue and communicative fluidity between academia and community, reducing municipalization to mere physical expansion rather than cultural integration. Finally, it is concluded that an imperative transition toward dialogic and reflective management is required. Such new management must validate popular and local knowledge by integrating it organically into the university curriculum, thereby ensuring that higher education fulfills its transformative social function within the territory.