ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a critical and decolonizing analysis of social innovation aimed at overcoming poverty in the South. It presents a field of controversies about social innovation related to its origin and inaccuracies. The concept of ethos is applied to social innovation, and epistemological, theoretical and methodological insights on the theme are discussed through its constituent elements. The chapter analyses the advances and limits of socially innovative practices for overcoming poverty in Brazil, as well as some epistemological and ethical-political implications of the production of social innovation in the South. Social innovation is, essentially, an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary phenomenon, since the processes and practices of innovative actors tend to cross boundaries between scientific disciplines and between regulatory frameworks of governmental structures. The level of democracy involves the way social value is produced. It seeks to highlight the process of development of social innovation, which is characterized as the capacity to promote empowerment and alteration of power correlations.
