Civic events in a dynamic local field. The role of participation for social innovation

Despite the spread of a variety of small-scale civic events, little is known about their potential for promoting innovation and field-wide implications. This paper addresses these points drawing on a study of 52 civic events in Milan between 2006 and 2010, which were set up by 10 nonprofit organizations within a shared local field. In order to assess if and how the observed events relate to a number of transformations that the local field underwent during the research period, an analytical typology of events' development is proposed. The results suggest that patterns of events' development are not neutral with respect to the production of field-relevant implications and that the triggering of social innovation processes by events requires pro-active public participation in their development processes.