This study analyzes the practices of implementation of the Urban PRORENDA, in Dunas Allotment, and how this experience has interfered in the power relationships in that community, especially in the period between 1996 and 2001, and which its consequences and effects were. It also analyzes the ascension of Dunas Allotment from the perspective of the third sector: local autonomy and empowerment, as well as the disarticulation of the neighborhood association: struggle for housing. It also brings into discussion the issue of traditional projects which are thought and executed by technicians of government management (top-down perspective) and projects which promote local participation and empowerment, taking as reference the Urban PRORENDA. Finally, it presents a framework of Dunas Allotment, since its constitution, in four important moments which made it possible to move that community from a peripheric and subordinated position into a situation of empowerment in what concerns local and global power relationships.
Key words: Power Relationships; Urban PRORENDA; Dunas Allotment Committee of Development, Microphysics; Third Sector.
