Social Innovation and Territorial Development

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, and especially since the first energy crisis of the 1970s and the neoliberal réveil, regional development and urban regeneration strategies have traditionally swung between two poles. On the one hand (and predominantly) such strategies centred on the market–economic: economic strategies to make regions and cities more market-feasible and competitive; physical renewal strategies (large-scale redevelopment projects, new technological systems, flagship cultural districts) to strengthen the economic basis of territories; and institutional transformations (deregulation of markets and state practices, privatization of public domain and actions, promotion of public–private partnerships) to encourage capital investment in new fields of economic activity and across newly opened borders. But on the other hand, initiatives taken by local bottom-up movements in neighbourhoods exposed to economic restructuring dynamics have benefited from special socially oriented area-based collective action and programmes. These have been led by various types of public actors (civil society and state) and have often followed an ‘integrated’ logic of development, trying to address a diverse range of problems and needs through coordinated action. More recently, and especially under conservative governments in the United States and many European countries, neoliberal thought, discourse and practice have produced a backlash against bottom-up social development, particularly in urban neighbourhoods that have been exposed to socioeconomic restructuring. © Diana MacCallum, Frank Moulaert, Jean Hillier and Serena Vicari Haddock 2009. All rights reserved.

Full text

Social Innovation
and Territorial Development
Edited by
DIANA MacCALLUM
Grifth University, Australia
FRANK MOULAERT
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
JEAN HILLIER
University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
SERENA VICARI HADDOCK
University of Milan – Bicocca, Italy

© Diana MacCallum, Frank Moulaert, Jean Hillier and Serena Vicari Haddock 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Diana MacCallum, Frank Moulaert, Jean Hillier and Serena Vicari Haddock have asserted
their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identied as the editors
of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Social innovation and territorial development
1. Economic development - Sociological aspects 2. Social
change 3. Regional planning 4. Urban renewal
I. MacCallum, Diana
306.3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Social innovation and territorial development / edited by Diana MacCallum ...
[et al.].p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-7233-3
1. Community development. 2. Social capital (Sociology) I. MacCallum, Diana.
HN49.C6S633 2008
307.1'4--dc22
09ANSHT 2008039454
ISBN: 978 0 7546 7233 3

Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables ix
Notes on Contributors xi
Preface xv
Introduction 1
Diana MacCallum, Frank Moulaert, Jean Hillier and Serena Vicari Haddock
PART I – SOCIAL INNOVATION: NEEDS SATISFACTION,
COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT AND GOVERNANCE
1 Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially
(Re)Produced 11
Frank Moulaert
2 Social Innovation for Community Economies 25
J.K. Gibson-Graham and Gerda Roelvink
3 Micronance, Capital for Innovation 39
Mariana Antohi
4 Civil Society, Governmentality and the Contradictions of
Governance-beyond-the-State: The Janus-face of Social Innovation 63
Erik Swyngedouw
PART II – CITIES AND SOCIALLY INNOVATIVE NEIGHBOURHOODS
5 Social Innovation for Neighbourhood Revitalization: A Case
of Empowered Participation and Integrative Dynamics in Spain 81
Arantxa Rodriguez
6 How Socially Innovative is Migrant Entrepreneurship?
A Case Study of Berlin 101
Felicitas Hillmann

Social Innovation and Territorial Development
vi
7 Social Innovation, Reciprocity and the Monetarization of Territory
in Informal Settlements in Latin American Cities 115
Pedro Abramo
8 Social Innovation and Governance of Scale in Austria 131
Andreas Novy, Elisabeth Hammer and Bernhard Leubolt
9 Inclusive Places, Arts and Socially Creative Milieux 149
Isabel André, Eduardo Brito Henriques and Jorge Malheiros
Index 167

Chapter 1
Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded,
Territorially (Re)Produced
Frank Moulaert
Introduction
‘Social innovation’ is a concept signicant in scientic research, business
administration, public debate and ethical controversy. As we will see in the
next section, the term is not new, especially in the scientic world. But it has
returned to prominence in the last 15 years, after a period of neglect. It is used
in ideological and theoretical debates about the nature and role of innovation in
contemporary society (Hillier et al. 2004), either to confront mainstream concepts
of technological and organizational innovation, or as a conceptual extension of the
innovative character of socio-economic development. That is, the concept enlarges
the economic and technological reading of the role of innovation in development
to encompass a more comprehensive societal transformation of human relations
and practices (Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2008).
A variety of life-spheres and academic disciplines have taken on board the
concept of social innovation. To begin with, social innovation is a hot topic
in business administration where it refers to two new foci. The rst one gives
more attention to the social character of the rm: the rm as a network of social
relations and as a community in which technological and administrative changes
are just one part of the innovation picture, the institutional and social being of
at least equal importance. To put it more strongly: the business administration
literature increasingly stresses how many technological innovations fail if they
are not integrated into a broader perspective in which changes in social relations
within, but also embedding, the rm play a key role. If this sounds like the ultimate
form of capitalism, that is, the commodication of all social relations within
and across rms, it also refers to a second concern, which is to let rms play a
more active social role in society – discursive or real. This sought-for social role
often reects a pure marketing strategy in the sense of ‘make the rm look more
socially responsible so as to sell better’; but it can also stand for a real alternative,
ranging from a diversity of ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ initiatives to
the establishment of new units or subsidiaries that are fully active in the social
economy, or/and have resolutely opted for ecologically and socially sustainable
outputs and production models (Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2008). But social
innovation is not only back on stage in business administration, it is the driving

Social Innovation and Territorial Development
12
force of many NGOs, a structuring principle of social economy organizations, a
bridge between emancipating collective arts initiatives and the transformation of
social relations in human communities.
This edited volume is about social innovation and territorial development.
It focuses on social innovation not only within a spatial context, but also as
‘transformer’ of spatial relations. It denes social innovation as the satisfaction
of alienated human needs through the transformation of social relations:
transformations which ‘improve’ the governance systems that guide and regulate
the allocation of goods and services meant to satisfy those needs, and which
establish new governance structures and organizations (discussion fora, political
decision-making systems, rms, interfaces, allocation systems, and so on).
Territorially speaking, this means that social innovation involves, among others,
the transformation of social relations in space, the reproduction of place-bound and
spatially exchanged identities and culture, and the establishment of place-based
and scale-related governance structures. This also means that social innovation is
quite often either locally or regionally specic, or/and spatially negotiated between
agents and institutions that have a strong territorial afliation.
Before focusing, in the third section of this chapter, on social innovation in
and through space, I rst adopt a more historical perspective and examine how
the concept of social innovation has been present in academic literature since the
beginning of the twentieth century, and even before.
Historic Antecedents of the Theory and Practice of Social Innovation
The concept of social innovation is not new. As far back as the eighteenth century,
Benjamin Franklin evoked social innovation in proposing minor modications
within the social organization of communities (Mumford 2002), and in 1893, Emile
Durkheim highlighted the importance of social regulation in the development of
the division of labour which accompanies technical change. Technical change itself
can only be understood within the framework of an innovation or renovation of the
social order to which it is relevant. At the start of the twentieth century, Max Weber
demonstrated the power of rationalization in his work on the capitalist system. He
examined the relationship between social order and innovation, a theme which
was revisited by philosophers in the 1960s. Amongst other things, he afrmed
that changes in living conditions are not the only determinants of social change.
Individuals who introduce a behaviour variant, often initially considered deviant,
can exert a decisive inuence; if the new behaviour spreads and develops, it can
become established social usage. In the 1930s, Joseph Schumpeter considered
social innovation as structural change in the organization of society, or within the
network of organizational forms of enterprise or business. Schumpeter’s theory of
innovation went far beyond the usual economic logic, and appealed to an ensemble
of sociologies (cultural, artistic, economic, political, and so on), which he sought

Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially (Re)Produced 13
to integrate into a comprehensive social theory that would allow the analysis of
both development and innovation.
Finally, in the 1970s, the French intellectuals of the ‘Temps des Cerises’
organized a debate of wide social and political signicance on the transformation
of society, and on the role of the revolts by students, intellectuals and workers. At
the same time, a major part of the debate was echoed in the columns of the journal
Autrement, with contributions from such prominent gures as Pierre Rosanvallon,
Jacques Fournier and Jacques Attali. In their book on social innovation, Que sais-
je?, Chambon, David and Devevey (1982) build on most of the issues highlighted
in this debate. This 128-page book remains the most complete ‘open’ synthesis
on the subject of social innovation to this day. In brief, the authors examine the
relationship between social innovation and the pressures bound up within societal
changes, and show how the mechanisms of crisis and recovery both provoke and
accelerate social innovation. Another link established by Chambon et al. concerns
social needs and the needs of the individual, individually or collectively revealed.
In practice, social innovation signies satisfaction of specic needs thanks to
collective initiative, which is not synonymous with state intervention. According to
Chambon et al., in effect the state can act, at one and the same time, as a barrier to
social innovation and as an arena of social interaction provoking social innovation
from within the spheres of state or market. Finally, these authors stress that social
innovation can occur in different communities and at various spatial scales, but is
conditional on processes of consciousness raising, mobilization and learning.
The authors cited up to this point cover the most signicant dimensions of social
innovation. Franklin refers to ‘one-off’ innovation in a specic context; Weber and
Durkheim emphasize changes in social relations or in social organization within
political and economic communities; Schumpeter focuses on the relationship
between development and innovation where strong technical economic innovation
is considered of prime importance and where the entrepreneur is viewed as a
leader who, despite facing many difculties, is able to introduce innovation into
modes of societal organization. Most of these highlight the importance of social
innovation within diverse types of institutions and institutional dynamics (such
as public administration, world politics, enterprise, local communities, intergroup
or community relations). Finally, Chambon et al. add to these dimensions by
introducing the relationships between social needs and their individuation, societal
change, and the role of the state. They thus offer a fuller picture of social innovation
which provides a platform for global discussion on this theme.
Today’s return to social innovation as a theme for research and as a principle
structuring collective action is not at odds with the ‘founding writings’ described
above. In tune with Schumpeter’s work, in contemporary business literature, social
innovation shows itself through the activities of the innovating entrepreneur who
alters the social linkages at the core of the enterprise, to improve its functioning,
to transform it into a social undertaking or to introduce a social rationale (for
example see Manoury 2002, 5). Schumpeter and Weber are cited regularly by
authors seeking to legitimize social transformation in organizational structures, in

Social Innovation and Territorial Development
14
both business and public administration, where principles of social innovation are
actively applied (for a survey see Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2008, Chapter 3).
Following on from the re-reading of the works of Benjamin Franklin, who
perceived social innovation as the solution to specic life problems (Mumford
2002), and of the foundational writings of sociology, social innovation today can
also be rediscovered within the artistic world, in which society and its structures
can be creatively rethought. In effect, the arts re-invent themselves as sociology,
as in the ‘Sociologist as an Artist’ approach, which underlines the importance
of sociology as the science of innovation in society (Du Bois and Wright 2001).
Finally, ‘the return of social innovation’, both in scientic literature and political
practice, is demonstrated by the use of the concept as an alternative to the logic
of the market, and to the generalized privatization movement that affects most
systems of economic allocation; it is expressed in terms of solidarity and reciprocity
(Liénard 2001; Nyssens 2000; Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2005b).
Social Innovation in Contemporary Social Science
In contemporary social science, there is growing interest in the idea of social
innovation. I have singled out four spheres, or approaches, utilizing the concept
which I present briey here.
The rst sphere is that of management science and its potential to share themes
with other social science disciplines. For instance, within social science literature,
authors emphasize opportunities for improving social capital which would allow
economic organizations either to function better or to change; this would produce
positive effects on social innovation in both the prot and non-prot sectors. This
emphasis on and reinterpretation of social capital, which has also been taken
on board in management science, would include economic aspects of human
development, an ethical and stable entrepreneurial culture, and so forth, and thus
facilitate the integration of broader economic agendas, such as those which advocate
strong ethical norms (fair business practices, respect for workers’ rights) or models
of stable reproduction of societal norms (justice, solidarity, cooperation and so
on) within the very core of the various entrepreneurial communities. However,
the price paid for this sharing of the social capital concept across disciplines is
that it has become highly ambiguous, and its analytical relevance is increasingly
questioned (Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2005b).
The second sphere arises from the elds of arts and creativity. It encompasses
the role of social innovation in social and intellectual creation. Michael Mumford
unlocks this idea in a paper which denes social innovation as:
l’émergence et la mise en œuvre d’idées nouvelles sur la manière dont les
individus devraient organiser les activités interpersonnelles ou les interactions
sociales an de dégager un ou plusieurs objectifs communs. Au même titre que

Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially (Re)Produced 15
d’autres formes d’innovation, la production résultant de l’innovation sociale
devrait varier en fonction de son ampleur et de son impact. (2002, 253) (2002, 253)
[the emergence and implementation of new ideas about how people should
organize interpersonal activities, or social interactions, to meet one or more
common goals. As with other forms of innovation, results produced by social
innovation may vary with regard to breadth and impact.]
Mumford, author of several articles on social innovation in the sphere of arts and
creativity, posits a range of innovations from the ‘macro-innovations’ of Martin
Luther King, Henry Ford or Karl Marx to ‘micro-innovations’ such as new
procedures to promote cooperative working practices, the introduction of new
core social practices within a group or the development of new business practices
(2002, 253). Mumford presents his own view of social innovation employing three
main ‘lines of work’: the life history of notable people whose contributions were
primarily in the social or political arena; the identication of capacities leaders
must possess to solve organizational problems; the development, introduction
and adaptation of innovations in industrial organizations. He then applies a mixed
reading along these three lines to an examination of the work of Benjamin Franklin
and arrives at a denition that parallels and shows synergies within the approach
of the ‘Sociologist as an Artist’.
The third sphere concerns social innovation in territorial development. Moulaert
(2000) stresses local development problems in the context of European towns:
the diffusion of skills and experience amongst the various sectors involved in the
formation of urban and local development policies; the lack of integration between
the spatial levels; and, above all, neglect of the needs of deprived groups within
urban society. To overcome these difculties, Laville et al. (1994) and Favreau
and Lévesque (1999) put forward neighbourhood and community development
models. Moulaert and his partners in the IAD project have suggested organizing
neighbourhood development along the lines of the Integrated Area Development
approach, (the Développement Territorial Intégré) which brings together the
various spheres of social development and the roles of the principal actors by
structuring them around the principle of social innovation. This principle links the
satisfaction of human needs to innovation in the social relationships of governance.
In particular, it underlines the role of socio-political capacity (or incapacity) and
access to the necessary resources in achieving the satisfaction of human needs; this
is understood to require participation in political decision making within structures
that previously have often been alienating, if not oppressive (Moulaert et al. 2007).
A similar approach has been proposed for regional development policy: the ‘Social
Region’ model offers an alternative to the market logic of Territorial Innovation
Models (TIM; see Moulaert and Sekia 2003), replacing it with a community logic
of social innovation (Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2005a).
The fourth sphere in which social innovation is the order of the day is that of
political science and public administration. Criticisms of the hierarchical character

Social Innovation and Territorial Development
16
of political and bureaucratic decision making systems are well known and are
at the root of new proposals concerned with change in the political system and,
above all, in the system of public administration. Several approaches or initiatives
have been developed: the use of territorial decentralization (regionalization,
enlarging the power and competence base of localities) in order to promote citizen
access to governance and government; an increase in the transparency of public
administration; the democratization of administrative systems by promoting
horizontal communication; a reduction in the number of bureaucratic layers. All are
designed to give more control and inuence to both users and other ‘stakeholders’
(Swyngedouw 2005; Novy and Leubolt 2005).
Social Innovation and Territorial Development
Social innovation analysis and practice have devoted particular attention to the
local and regional territory. In Western Europe, but also in other ‘post-industrial’
world regions like North America and Latin America, urban neighbourhoods
have been the privileged spatial focus of territorial development based on social
innovation. There are many explanations for this focus. First, there is the high
tangibility of decline and restructuring in urban neighbourhoods: plant closure in
the neighbourhood or within its vicinity erodes the local job market; high density of
low-income social groups manifests in spending behaviour and social interaction;
lived experience of the consequences of physical and biotopical decline affects
community life, and so on. Because of spatial concentration, in general, the social
relations, governance dynamics and agents ‘responsible for’ the decline are more
easily identiable in urban neighbourhoods than in lower density areas or at higher
spatial scales. Proximity feeds depression, fatalism, localized déjà-vus, and so
on. But, second, spatial density simultaneously works as a catalyst for revealing
alternatives, however meagre they may be; urban neighbourhoods spatially
showcase the cracks of hope in the system (to paraphrase CityMine(d) which
uses the term KRAX, or urban ruptures or crack lines – see KRAX Journadas
n.d.). Their proximity to the institutional and economic arenas underscores the
ambiguity of these neighbourhoods: they are both hearths of doom – they could
not avoid or even ‘architecture’ the decline – and ambits of hope – these arenas
of dense human interaction show and often become loci of new types of social
relations and drivers of alternative agendas.
The ambiguity of the status of local territories as breeding grounds of socially
innovative development is well known in the literature. On the one hand these
territories very often have lived long histories of ‘disintegration’: being cut
off from prosperous economic dynamics, fragmentation of local social capital,
breakdown of traditional and often benecial professional relations, loss of quality
of policy delivery systems, and so on. In this context Moulaert and Leontidou
(1995) have called such areas disintegrated areas (see also Moulaert 2000). On the
other hand, several of these areas have been hosts for dynamic populations and

Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially (Re)Produced 17
creative migration ows which have been instrumental in (partly) revalorizing
social, institutional, artistic and professional assets from the past, discovering new
assets and networking these into ights towards the future. In this sense, there is an
articial split within the local community-based development literature between
the more traditional ‘needs satisfaction’, ‘problem solving’ approach, and the more
diversity-based, future-oriented community development approach which looks in
particular at the identication of aspirations, strengths and assets of communities
to move into a future of hope (see Chapter 2, by Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, in
this book; Kretzmann and McKnight 1993).
A thesis defended throughout the chapters in this book is that needs satisfaction
and assets for development approaches cannot be separated, either for the purpose
of analysing local socio-economic development trajectories of the past, or for
the construction of alternatives for the present and future. The philosophy of the
Integrated Area Development approach is based on the satisfaction of basic needs
in ways that reect not only the alienation and deprivation of the past, but also
the aspirations of the new future. This satisfaction should be effectuated by the
combination of several processes:
the revealing of needs, and of potentials to meet them, by social movements
and institutional dynamics – within and outside the state sphere, with a
focus, but a non exclusive focus, on the local scale;
the integration of groups of deprived citizens into the labour market and
the local social economy production systems (referring to activities such as
housing construction, ecological production activities, social services);
education and professional training leading to integration into the labour
market, but also to more active participation in consultation and decision
making on the future of the territory. The institutional dynamics should
continually enrich local democracy, the relations with the local authorities
and the other public as well as private partners situated outside the locality
but taking part in the local development. The local community could in
this way seek to regain control of its own governance, and put its own
movements and assets at the heart of this process of renaissance (Martens
and Vervaeke 1997; Mayer forthcoming; García 2006).
Looking more closely at how the above processes are materialized, Integrated
Area Development is socially innovative in at least two senses. First of all, from
a sociological perspective, IAD involves innovation in the relations between
individuals as well as within and among groups. The organization of groups and
communities, the building of communication channels between privileged and
disfavoured citizens within urban society, the creation of a people’s democracy at
the local level (neighbourhood, small communities, groups of homeless or long term
unemployed, and so on) are factors of innovation in social relations. Governance
relations are a part of the social relations of Integrated Area Development; without
transformation of institutions and practices of governance, it becomes more or less
•
•
•

Social Innovation and Territorial Development
18
impossible to overcome the fractures caused by different disintegration factors
within communities and their local territories (Garcia 2006; LeGalès 2002).
The second meaning of social innovation within IAD reinforces the rst: it
evokes the ‘social’ of the social economy and social work (Amin et al. 1999). The
challenge here is to meet the fundamental needs of groups of citizens deprived
(démunis) of a minimum income, of access to quality education and other benets
of an economy from which their community has been excluded. There are different
opinions on the nature of fundamental or basic needs, but a consensus is developing
that a contextual denition is needed, according to which the reference ‘basket’ of
basic needs depends on the state of development of the national/regional economy
to which a locality belongs. ‘State of development’ here refers to the income per
capita, the distribution of income and wealth and the cultural dynamics and norms
determining so-called secondary needs.
The combination of these two readings of social innovation stresses the importance
of creating ‘bottom-up’ institutions for participation and decision-making, as well as
for production and allocation of goods and services (see Figure 1.1). The mobilization
of political forces which will be capable of promoting integrated development is
based on the empowerment of citizens deprived of essential material goods and
services, and of social and political rights. Such a mobilization should involve
a needs-revealing process different from that of the market, which reveals only
necessities expressed through a demand backed up by purchasing power – the
only demand that is recognized in orthodox economics. In a decently working
Welfare State/economy persons and groups without sufcient purchasing power
could address themselves to the existing systems of social assistance and welfare
for the satisfaction of their needs. But these sources of goods and services are often
downsized by the austerity policy of the neoliberal state or by the dominance of
allocation criteria based on individual merits; they therefore do not always provide
an acceptable level or quality.
Experiences of alternative territorial development, inspired and/or steered by
socially innovative agencies and processes, unveil different aspects of the double
denition of social innovation at the level of cities and urban neighbourhoods.
Professional training targets the reintegration of unemployed into the regular
labour market but also into new production initiatives in the construction sector, the
consumption goods sector, ecological production activities, and so on (Community
Development Foundation 1992). In many localities, new networks for production,
training and neighbourhood governance are being explicitly constructed (Jacquier
1991; OECD-OCDE 1998; Favreau and Levesque 1999; Fontan et al. 2004; Drewe
et al. 2008). But to achieve the ambitions of Integrated Area Development, the
different pillars of IAD (territorially based needs satisfaction, innovation in social
relations and socio-political empowerment) should be effectively materialized and
connected. Far from seeking to impose an ‘integral integration’, connecting all the
theoretical constituents of the approach, we consider territorial development projects
as integrated when at least two ‘sectors’ (sectors of materialized IAD pillars are:
training and education, labour market, employment and local production) are linked

Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially (Re)Produced 19
and when an active governance (reproduced through community empowerment and
institutional dynamics) steers or feeds this connection (Moulaert 2000). Socially
innovative governance in IAD has as an objective the democratization of local
development, through activating local politics and policy-making, simplifying
the functioning of institutions and attributing a more signicant role to local
populations and social movements (Novy and Leubolt 2005). The empowerment
of the local population is primordial to democratic governance and the building
of connections between the sections of the local system. It is, in the rst place,
implemented by jointly designed procedures of consultation and shared decision
making about the needs to be revealed and met, and about the assets that could be
put on track to this end.
The Social Relations of Territorial Community Development
There exist many different orientations for strategies of social innovation at the
level of neighbourhoods and localities (cultural, technological, artistic, artisanal;
and equitable provision of ‘proximity services’ – see City 2004; André et
al. Chapter 9 in this book). This book (especially the second part) focuses on
INSTITUTIONAL DYNAMICS
– local politics
– local democracy
– local development policy
– local movements
– local administration
TRAINING
EMPLOYMENT/PRODUCTION
– housing
– social services
– urban infrastructure
–
manufacturin
g
and services sme
SATISFACTION OF BASIC NEEDS
CITIZENS
– grassroots movements
– local democracy
LABOUR
MARKET
LOCALITY
E
X
T
E
R
N
A
L
S
P
A
C
E
EXTERNAL SPACE –SPATIAL SCALES
Figure 1.1 Social innovation and integrated area development
Source: Based on Moulaert et al. (2000).

Social Innovation and Territorial Development
20
territorially integrated experiences or projects that combine various initiatives built
on forces that are socially organized at diverse but articulated spatial scales, with
the purpose of satisfying the existential needs of inhabitants, and in the rst place
those inhabitants deprived of resources.1 The rich diversity of research into such
initiatives allows exploration of the relationship between path dependence, the
present and the future of neighbourhoods, as well as between the analysis of and
the strategies for territorial and community development. These relationships are
difcult and refer as much to the problems raised by the (structural, institutional)
determinants stemming from socioeconomic history as from the potential conicts
and opportunities that the confrontation of ‘past’ and ‘future’ as well as ‘here’
and ‘elsewhere’ can generate. In this respect, the analysis of path dependency as
embedded in territorial development helps to avoid a deterministic reading of both
the past and the structural–institutional context in which territorial and community
development (should) take(s) place.
Thus considered, the ‘va et vient’ between lived development and pro-active
development, has generated a number of observations on the nexus of social
relations and territorial development:
The social relations of territorial development are not legible in general
terms, but require an explication of the nature of development, the type
of socio-political development, the nature of the strategic actors and the
relationships with the territory – in all its social, political, economic, etc.
dimensions.
The same holds for the analysis of social capital within territorial
social relations, where one should avoid at any price an instrumental
interpretation. Social capital is socially embedded – and this is not a
tautological observation but rather a conrmation of the fragmented nature
of social relations and their links with the economic, cultural and symbolic
capital of individuals and groups that belong to specic social communities
(Moulaert and Nussbaumer 2005b). From this viewpoint, social innovation
means not only the (re)production of social capital(s) in view of the
implementation of development agendas, but also their protection from
fragmentation/segmentation, and the valorization of their territorial
and communal specicity through the organization and mobilization of
excluded or disfavoured groups and territories.
I conclude that social innovation in territorial development must be addressed
through a detailed analysis of how social and territorial logics interact with each
other. In Lefebvrian terms (1991 [1974]) one should indeed devote reection to
the following questions:
1 See also the work of Christian Jacquier, Jean-Louis Laville, Juan-Luis Klein,See also the work of Christian Jacquier, Jean-Louis Laville, Juan-Luis Klein,
J.K. Gibson-Graham, Frank Moulaert, Pavlos Delladetsima, Serena Vicari Haddock,
Jean-Cédric Delvainquière, Christophe Demazière and the EU project SINGOCOM (n.d.).
•
•

Social Innovation: Institutionally Embedded, Territorially (Re)Produced 21
How does social innovation relate to the social production of space?
Should it only be interpreted in terms of production (and production of
perceived space) or is it also part of conceived and lived space?
Within much of the literature, social innovation in its territorial dynamics is
expressed in terms of the representation of space, or even of spatial practice. But in
reality its materialization depends signicantly on its relations with the lived space
and its perception; in fact it is this lived space that will produce the images and the
symbols to develop a new language, and the imagineering tools to conceptualize
a future social space.
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