“Profiguration”, intercultural creative action and social innovation in Rapa Nui

Abstract

This article illustrates the usefulness of sociology to study processes of social innovation at the micro level, through a basically qualitative research on the Island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Through a qualitative methodology, based fundamentally on the analysis of in-depth interviews and biographical accounts of indigenous people of the island, there is a clear commitment to social innovation articulated in an “Intergenerational”, “Intercultural”, “Technological” and “Political”. In this sense, the conclusions allow us to introduce a new concept: “Profiguration”. In this sense, the conclusions demonstrate (at the micro level for Rapa Nui, but extrapolated in a contextualized way) the importance of creative (intercultural) action and social innovation in a holistic institutional framework: political, cultural, educational, economic, environmental, etc. Likewise, intergenerational creativity, as a collective process, reinforces this social innovation in a framework that is more than “glocal”, of alterglobalization, in a “Profigurative” society (intergenerational). All this to face the dangers that lurk to the island: the identity, the cultural survival of its citizens and the own sustainability.