Social appropriation and knowledge hybridization in the processes of university extension

The concept of university extension has come a long way since its first formulations during the nineteenth century. Along the way it has incorporated different meanings generally framed in a model of asymmetric relation between society and the population served. The concept of social appropriation of knowledge seeks a more effective and dynamic approach of public to scientific knowledge. However, both concepts remain - more or less explicitly-an asymmetric and linear vision of the relationship between expert and lay knowledge. This paper reflects on the university extension as a framework that conjugates a dynamic production of decisions based on the hybridization of heterogeneous knowledge, articulating universal and local knowledge, in which the public and beneficiaries of university extension take active roles in the construction of solutions to problems locally bounded.