Social innovation, social bricolage, and brokerage after a disaster in córrego d’antas

Abstract

We studied how a Brazilian community responded to a disaster using social innovations (SI) developed based on social bricolage and brokerage with stakeholders. The paper seeks to explain these processes and their interrelation. The methodological approach was primarily inductive, using semi-structured and open-ended interviews, document analysis, and the residential experience of the senior author before, during, and after the disaster. Our results suggest that the disaster upset the social balance of the community in several ways and triggered waves of subsequent SI related to social bricolage and brokerage that faded somewhat over time. Originality and value of the paper derive both from the unique and neglected context of post-disaster recuperation in a developing country and from the application of advances in the conceptualization of brokerage and its relation to social bricolage and SI.