Towards Alternative Model(S) of Local Innovation
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Urban Studies, Vol. 42, No. 11, 1969–1990, October 2005 Towards Alternative Model(s) of Local Innovation Frank Moulaert, Flavia Martinelli, Erik Swyngedouw and Sara Gonza´lez [Paper first received, June 2004; in final form, June 2005] Summary. This paper introduces a Special Topic on social innovation in the governance of urban communities. It also seeks to widen the debate on the meaning of social innovation both in social science theory and as a tool for empirical research on socioeconomic development and governance at the local level. This debate is organised around ALMOLIN—i.e. alternative models for local innovation as utilised in the SINGOCOM (social innovation in governance in (local) communities) research. The first section explains the role of social innovation in neighbourhood development and how it is best addressed from theoretical, historical and experience-oriented viewpoints. The second section provides a survey of the definitions of social innovation in a variety of social science fields, while the third section mobilises various strands of literature that will be of use for the analytical refinement of ALMOLIN. Section four illustrates how ALMOLIN is used as an analytical tool for empirical research. The final section shows some avenues for future research on social innovation. 1. Introduction within the debate on the transformation of society as a whole (see, for example, This Special Topic deals with the role of social Chambon et al., 1982). This is particularly innovation in neighbourhood development. Its the case for political science arguments main focus is theoretical. It surveys the theor- on the role of civil society in social change etical literature on social innovation across (Swyngedouw, in this issue) and the counter- the social sciences: social and institutional cyclical role of the social economy in the economics, regional and local development overall macroeconomic dynamics (Moulaert theory, political science, institutional and and Ailenei, in this issue). Secondly, the topic urban sociology, planning and geography, of social innovation is a relatively new one. with occasional references to other disciplines It was used at the turn of the 19th century with an interest in spatial development. Not by Max Weber (‘social inventions’) and in all theory that is mobilised in these theoretical the 1930s by Joseph Schumpeter; but until papers refers to the spatial or the local. There some 20 years ago it was not a predominant are many reasons for this. We mention only theme in social science analysis (Moulaert two here. First, many of the analytical lines and Nussbaumer, 2006). But the discontent relevant to the understanding of ‘social inno- with the technological bias in economic inno- vation’ have been developed as arguments vation literature and innovation policy, the Frank Moulaert is in the Global Urban Research Unit (GURU), University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK. Fax: 0191 222 6008. E-mail: [email protected] and CNRS-IFRESI, France. Flavia Martinelli is in OASI (Dipartimento di progettazione per la citta`, il paesaggio e il territorio), Universita` Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]. Erik Swynge- douw is in the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB, UK. Fax: 44 (0)1865 271929. E-mail: [email protected]. Sara Gonza´lez is in CNRS–IFRESI, France, and in the Global Urbanþ Research Unit (GURU), University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK. Fax: 0191 222 6008. E-mail: [email protected]. The authors wish to thank Bernie Williams for the language editing of this article and all the other articles in this Special Topic. The SINGOCOM research project was funded by the European Commission’s Framework 5 Programme. 0042-0980 Print=1360-063X Online=05=111969–22 # 2005 The Editors of Urban Studies DOI: 10.1080=00420980500279893 1970 FRANK MOULAERT ET AL. technocratic approach to urban planning in the residents and associations and initiation of late 20th century and the mildly positive results projects in the neighbourhood. It has been obtained from local development initiatives in particularly successful in integrating groups Europe and Australia increased the enthusiasm of German resettlers from the Soviet Union for social innovation as a lead theme in the in the governance structures of neighbourhood theorising of human development and emanci- management, thus establishing a direct link pation as well as in local development between the needs and demands of this strategies (Hillier et al., 2004). excluded group and the resources to tackle The starting-point for this Special Topic them. In Naples, a Catholicism-rooted group lies with SINGOCOM, a socioeconomic of volunteers established an informal social research project dealing with ‘social inno- network to help people in the deprived area vation in governance for local communities’, of Quartieri Spagnoli. Over time, the funded by the Framework 5 Programme of network acquired institutional capacity and the European Commission.1 This project was became a node in the management of funds in part meant as a reaction against the nar- from different governmental levels such as rowly defined deterministic views of inno- the EU or the Naples city council. In Sunder- vation as a driving force in urban land, north-east England, a workers co-operat- development strategies policy and in the so- ive and a housing association came together in called New Urban Policy (Swyngedouw the early 1980s to share their skills and help et al., 2003; Moulaert et al., 2003). During new co-operatives start, and to become a their extensive experience as researchers and central part of the economy in the area. activists in civil society and local government, Social and co-operative enterprises assisted the proposers of SINGOCOM had become by them now employ over 400 workers (full- impressed by the mushrooming of high- and part-time) and have a collective turnover quality and innovative community develop- exceeding £5 million (around E7 million) up ment initiatives in European cities and to June 2002. In Antwerp, BOM (meaning wanted to provide these initiatives with a Bomb, but also the Dutch acronym of the new synthesis of theoretical foundations. Neighbourhood Development Corporation) A sample of some of these innovative was born in reaction to the economic, socio- initiatives can be found in the Small Databank cultural and physical decay of the most that has been produced in the course of the deprived neighbourhoods in the city. BOM SINGOCOM research and that is available promotes the concept of community-based on the project website. Concepts of innovation economic regeneration and integrated area used in this sample range from attempts to development by bringing together the supplement gaps in the welfare state to crea- resources in order to improve the living con- tive community arts initiatives and organis- ditions of the most deprived people, to reinte- ations. But the general social rationale of grate them into the economy through these initiatives is to promote inclusion into customised training and individual counsel- different spheres of society (especially the ling and to reinforce the economic base of labour market, education system and socio- the district. BOM has networked private and cultural life), while the political rationale is public partners from a variety of spheres in to give a ‘voice’ to groups that have been society, organised at different spatial levels traditionally absent from politics and the (local, regional, national, EU). In Milan, a politico-administrative system at the local psychiatric hospital has been (re)integrated and other institutional/spatial scales. in the public, social and economic space of In Berlin, for example, the Quartiers the city and the metropolitan area by Agentur Marzahn NordWest, a local mediat- opening its doors and setting up economic ing organisation or ‘integrated neighbour- activities run and used by patients and neigh- hood action’ carries out the task of project bours. In Cardiff, Wales, a project was co-ordination, activation and participation of initiated by an American anthropologist to MODELS OF LOCAL INNOVATION 1971 record the heritage and social history of a movements can be very pragmatic in origin, deprived and excluded neighbourhood threa- a plain reaction to mechanisms of exploitation tened by property development. The project’s or oppression; but they can always be related objectives include building awareness and to some grand social philosophy or norm, critical engagement of citizens by using colla- such as bourgeois philanthropy, liberal borative arts-based projects. Other cases have justice, anarchist liberty, socialist solidarity been recorded that cannot be dealt with here, or revolution. Finally, even such grand philos- which all show, across different institutional ophies can acquire peculiar features, can be settings and through different trajectories, reversed and even reshaped by the pressures the relevance of the social dimension in inno- of local political, social and cultural contexts. vation dynamics and in political governance. All this said, a number of features of change In order theoretically to orient and methodo- dynamics, as well as tensions, can be ident- logically to structure the case study work in the ified and seem to be shared among the move- SINGOCOM project, alternative model(s) for ments and places, which constitute the core of local innovation (or ALMOLIN) were devel- the ALMOLIN analytical framework. oped. Originally, in the proposal to the EC’s Focus on community, governance and Framework 5 Programme, ALMOLIN was reproduction. The post-Fordist social move- only meant as a heuristic device with which ments mostly focus on the reproduction to organise the case study work on social inno- sphere and on consumption, away from the vation at the local level; but later it also became traditional struggle in the workplace and in a framework for the discussion of the meaning the production sphere. They also target gov- of social innovation, from both an analytical ernance, meant as a more democratic and and a normative point of view.