Abstract
This stream explores the territorial dimension of social innovation and social innovation as a territorial process. Social innovation does not just happen in spatially specific contexts, but it is embedded in specific socio-political, cultural, institutional and economic contexts that influence its emergence and define its development path. Understanding social innovation as a process of reconfiguration of social practices in response to societal challenges, the session also aims to investigate the territorial dimensions of the processes of change of social practices (governance arrangement, networks, and attitude), the actors involved and their institutional embedding before, during, and after the process of social innovation. In concrete, this stream investigates social innovation in territories with geographical specificities (TGS). TGS have specific constraints related to their geography (remoteness, limited infrastructure, etc.) and are particularly confronted with social, economic and environmental problems. Looking at social innovation initiatives in those types of regions may help to identify the territorial characteristics of social innovation in terms of its emergence and development in physically constrained environments. Overall, the session aims to increase knowledge on the specificities of social innovation in these regions and on their capacity to be socially innovative.
From this perspective, we invite contributions from any social science (geography, economics, sociology, anthropology, development studies, political science, and related disciplines) dealing with any of the following lines of inquiry:
- Proposals that suggest a theoretical, methodological or empirical reflection on the territorial dimension of social innovation in territories with specific constraints.
- New perspectives for local and regional development in TGS. Social innovation opens new perspectives for local and regional development, so it is also interesting investigating to what degree SI produces outcomes/impacts that improve societal wellbeing and deliver transformative social changes.
- The characteristics of marginalisation and related societal challenges in TGS addressed by social innovation (e.g. population decline and ageing, limited employment opportunities, lack of public services and climate change) and how they enhance or obstruct people’s capacity to act for changes shaping the social innovation processes themselves.