SOCIAL INNOVATION AS AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE

Abstract

In a world threatened by several crises, including collapse of ecosystems, hegemony of market thinking over the economy, rolling back of the state, diminution of democracy to moments of election and consensus, concentration of wealth, predominance of global corporative conglomerates, rapidly changing identities and loss of socio-cultural diversity, there is an urgent need of an alternative and persuasive narrative. Although threatened (and often plagued) by various economic-centred instrumentalizations, the theory of social innovation provides such an alternative. This theory combines a critical, profound and holist understanding of societal dynamics with a focus on socially innovative practices, responding to unaddressed needs, empowering the deprived, and changing the social relations. Social innovation encompasses collective action that succeeds in changing the world for the better, by mutually embedding social, economic and ecological systems, recreating solidarity-based community relations, stimulating a fair distribution of resources, establishing regenerative economies, and supporting socio-cultural, discursive and cognitive diversity.