Inovações sociais introduzidas no âmbito de um evento municipal: o Natal Luz de Gramado

Abstract

This paper studies the social innovation features and their likely analogies towards the Enlightened Christmas Event held annually in Gramado having as its main reference Anthony Gidden’s Theory of Structuration. Society goes through severe social stress and each time more it causes the weakening of the economical and social advancements of the individuals, which are not solved by organizations, whether they are public or private. Despite the government good will to provide the improvement and well being, there is still a very big gap, for the public policies promoted can’t manage to reach all the problems of inequality. In this context, there comes the social innovation which contemplates the cooperation and inclusion of the agents involved, which creates attitude, new actions and lasting principles before the whole. The social innovation attributes to society a non-mercantile nature, a collective character, and an intention which transforms social relations. It emerges as a tool of alternative change to implement solutions through permanent actions. It begins to matter in the world social context aiming to aggregate non-factile community interests, inserts new efficient systems, tries to solve or softens management issues and the basic needs of agents involved. Social innovation presents itself as a manifestation of the individual, who supposedly wishes the transformation through policies with the focus on inclusion of people in a territorial basis. The concept of social innovation features with focus on organization, on the individual and on the territoriality. The data gathered in the interviews suggest that the economical, cultural and social factors, favor the development of the county according to the logic of the Theory of Structuration. The Enlightened Christmas Event is presented in this study, as a way of finding positive impact solutions through the self sustainability providing improvement in the quality of life.