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Between Innovation and Restoration: a Critical Comparison of Relative Novelty in 20 Social Innovation initiatives

par Pel, Bonno ;Kemp, René
Référence International Social Innovation Research Conference(10: 03-05 September 2018: Heidelberg (GER)), International Social Innovation Research Conference
Publication Publié, 2018-09-04

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Résumé :

Social innovation (SI) is gaining attention as an innovation category. Asserting the innovativeness of practices and actors often neglected in innovation policy, it has emancipating significance. Either out of practical engagement or as objectifying attempts to move the SI field further, various attempts have therefore been made towards conceptual stabilization. As argued in recent critical innovation scholarship, such attempts are vulnerable to reproducing stock images of progressive innovation, however. This contribution therefore develops a historicizing perspective that clarifies the relative novelty of innovations in social relations. As observed in a comparative study of 20 transnational social innovation networks, the radical novelty and upscaling tendencies of social ‘niches’ are only the surface appearance of a much broader spectrum of social innovation. Building on Strategic Niche Management insights, recent advances in critical innovation scholarship and social innovation literature, a typology is developed that systematically unfolds the broader range between innovation and restoration, upscaling and protection. This critical-historicizing analysis informs a balanced understanding of SI, accounting for both its manifest as well as its latent forms .