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In the context of a weakening of representative democracy and the rejection of the division between those who govern and the governed, civic initiatives constitute pools of popular inventiveness, offer alternative views of the world, and produce knowledge rooted in the social fabric of the territories. In contrast with the disqualification of the knowledge developed in the context of civic experiments, the “ecology of knowledge” approach developed by Boaventura de Sousa Santos sketches the outlines of an epistemological, political and economic pluralism that makes it possible to think about the interdependence between associative knowledge and public authorities. This article explores how the struggle for the recognition of the model of community management, sustained by local associations in Barcelona, made it possible to reinvent the paradigms of civic participation and public action from the perspective of democratic radicalisation.