Social Innovation in Indigenous Communities in Latin America

Abstract

This chapter contributes to the literature on social innovation by analyzing its attributes in indigenous communities and contexts of exclusion, marginalisation, and subsistence; identifying the process of social innovation; and exploring the meaning of social innovation according to the cosmovision of indigenous groups. It explores the meaning and attributes of social innovation in indigenous communities in Latin America. This chapter also contributes to an existing lack of studies about social innovation in different places, especially contexts of exclusion, marginalization and subsistence. It contributes to the literature by identifying a process of social innovation that aims to reconfigure the relation between people, place and culture in indigenous communities, which situates this work among the literature that associates social innovation with connecting communities and traditions. The results invite to continue the analysis of what constitutes social innovation in indigenous communities and also to explore the conditions that could generate and accelerate this phenomenon.