Festivals as instruments of cultural welfare: A theoretical reflection

Cultural welfare is an instrument of social cohesion which, using cultural forms, fights inequalities and focuses on health promotion. It is a model for developing individual and community well-being and enhancing bottom-up practices. Festivals generate socio-cultural impacts on the territory and on citizens, acting as moments of inclusion and participation, and offering spaces for innovation. Festivals can therefore be tools for creating cultural welfare, triggering processes of social innovation in communities, breaking down some social barriers, improving people’s well-being, and enlivening spaces not usually used for cultural activities. This theoretical work does not want to be a systematic review of the existing literature, but a starting point for the analysis of festivals as instruments of cultural welfare.