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Social Innovation in Urban and Rural Areas: Empowerment, (Disruptive) Transformative...
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Social Innovation in Urban and Rural Areas: Empowerment, (Disruptive) Transformative Processes and Impact on Community Development

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 1898

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Gabriela Christmann

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, 15537 Erkner, Germany
2. Department of Sociology, Technical University of Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany
Interests: social innovation; processes of innovation; community development in urban and rural areas; social constructions of space; digitalization of human action
Prof. Dr. Ariane Sept

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Applied Social Sciences, Munich University of Applied Sciences, 81243 München, Germany
Interests: social and sustainable transformations in urban and rural areas; spatial planning processes and planning theory; social innovation; community and neighbourhood development; methods of spatial analysis
Dr. Ralph Richter

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, 15537 Erkner, Germany
Interests: urban and rural sociology; social innovation; socioecological transformation; social entrepreneurship; participation research

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urban and rural regions face diverse and complex challenges. Many actors involved in community development and spatial planning are therefore looking for novel solutions that can better address existing problems. In increasingly unfolding societal and scientific discourses on the topic, high hopes are placed on the potential of social innovations. It is typically assumed that socially innovative initiatives can bring empowerment to the actors involved, generate transformative—if not disruptive—dynamics, and bring about beneficial community development. Rarely, however, is there a concrete description of how these assumptions can be coherently conceptualized, which methodological research designs can be used to investigate, and to what extent they are de facto empirically evidenced or which systematic findings we already have about them.

The Special Issue aims to address these gaps. The focus will therefore be on how the empowerment of people, (disruptive) transformative processes, and the impact on community development can be understood in the context of social innovations. Spatially, the Special Issue will consider both urban and rural communities, including villages and small- and medium-sized towns.

On the one hand, contributions will be collected that are primarily theoretical and/or methodological in nature. Papers may address, but are not limited to:

  • How can empowerment, (disruptive) transformative processes, and/or impact on community development be thought of in theoretical/conceptual terms in the context of social innovation?
  • How can these phenomena be investigated in methodological terms?

On the other hand, empirical articles will be included as well. Based on collected data and case studies, they should answer one or more of the following questions using the example of socially innovative initiatives in urban and/or rural areas:

  • How is empowerment empirically manifested in the context of social innovative initiatives? Who is empowered, and who is not? In what ways does empowerment occur? How was it achieved, and were there any specific measures to actively support empowerment? Are there facilitating or hindering factors or even limits to empowerment? Is empowerment perceived by the actors themselves, and if so, how? Which role did traditional or new power relations and controversies play in social innovation?
  • How can transformative processes be described empirically in the context of social innovative initiatives? What has changed in concrete terms? How did the change take place (in which steps, disruptively or rather incrementally)? What exactly is the 'transformative' character of the social innovative initiatives? How stable has the transformation proven to be so far?
  • Can the impact of socially innovative initiatives on community development be described? If not, what could be the reasons? If yes, which impact can be observed? What exactly could be further developed and how, or what developments could be triggered? What part did empowerment play in this? How is the impact perceived or evaluated by the actors themselves and by third parties (who were not involved)?

It is of course possible to discuss conceptual and/or methodological aspects in empirical contributions.

Contributions have to follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) for the journal and address the topic of the special issue.

Prof. Dr. Gabriela Christmann
Prof. Dr. Ariane Sept
Dr. Ralph Richter
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban and rural areas
  • social innovation
  • empowerment
  • transformative processes
  • disruption
  • impact on community development

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 1334 KiB  
Article
Transforming the Creative and Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The Broker Roles of Rural Collaborative Workspaces
by Chen Gao and Eleonora Psenner
Societies 2024, 14(6), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14060081 (registering DOI) - 30 May 2024
Abstract
Creative social enterprises are increasingly emerging in rural regions, motivated by a desire to take social responsibility through creative approaches. These enterprises integrate entrepreneurial activities with creative social attributes and are sometimes set in rural collaborative workspaces (CWSs) facilitating entrepreneurial activities. Under the [...] Read more.
Creative social enterprises are increasingly emerging in rural regions, motivated by a desire to take social responsibility through creative approaches. These enterprises integrate entrepreneurial activities with creative social attributes and are sometimes set in rural collaborative workspaces (CWSs) facilitating entrepreneurial activities. Under the frame of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), we argue that CWSs can be seen as brokers, who (1) link resources as liaisons, (2) hold and pass resources as gatekeepers, (3) enhance resource flows as coordinators, and (4) reproduce experiences as representatives. Against this backdrop, this paper presents a case study of two creative social enterprises in a CWS with a cooperative structure in rural Upper Austria by analyzing entrepreneurial biographies about the demand and use of entrepreneurial resources. Through a comparison between before and after the emergence of the CWS, the findings suggest that the EE for creative and social entrepreneurship undergoes two different types of transformation, a radical and a gradual one. The brokerage process of the CWS enhances local resource networks’ transformation of EE and brings the transformation in terms of translocal resources and integral EE of enterprises in the CWS. Additionally, the CWS generates social impacts on the local community through social enterprises. This paper contributes to ecosystem literature by introducing an actor-centric perspective and giving new insights into social entrepreneurship and the transformative power of CWSs as brokers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Innovation in Urban and Rural Areas: Empowerment, (Disruptive) Transformative Processes and Impact on Community Development)
22 pages, 319 KiB  
Article
Valuation in Rural Social Innovation Processes—Analysing Micro-Impact of a Collaborative Community in Southern Italy
by Federica Ammaturo and Suntje Schmidt
Societies 2024, 14(6), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14060076 - 27 May 2024
Viewed by 353
Abstract
Social innovation has been associated with contributing to ‘valuable’ rural development; however, usually, the impact of social innovation has been identified in the aftermath of its development or implementation. This might be too narrow an approach, as an ongoing social innovation process in [...] Read more.
Social innovation has been associated with contributing to ‘valuable’ rural development; however, usually, the impact of social innovation has been identified in the aftermath of its development or implementation. This might be too narrow an approach, as an ongoing social innovation process in itself may already lead to effects that contribute to regional and social changes in a local community and beyond. This paper argues that collaborative valuation processes are embedded in social innovation processes, generating effects that contribute to rural development. Focusing on a case study that exemplifies social innovation processes in agriculture and food production carried out by a rural collaborative community in southern Italy, we demonstrate how three valuation phases, such as contestations and negotiations of norms, symbolic capital accumulation and recognition of actions, as well as re-definitions of values, impact community development through joint sense-making, empowerment and societal change. Our empirical results suggest the close intertwining of both social innovation and valuation processes. The empirical results demonstrate how collective valuation processes have micro-effects on the agro-economic system, on local socio-cultural processes, and on place-making activities. Methodologically, this paper builds on ethnographic methods, including participatory observations, semi-structured interviews, oral histories, and socio-spatial analysis investigating moments of valuation embedded in daily collaborative practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Innovation in Urban and Rural Areas: Empowerment, (Disruptive) Transformative Processes and Impact on Community Development)
23 pages, 461 KiB  
Article
Socially Innovative Initiatives in Deprived Rural Areas of Germany, Ireland and Portugal: Exploring Empowerment and Impact on Community Development
by Gabriela Christmann, Ariane Sept and Ralph Richter
Societies 2024, 14(5), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14050058 - 28 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 849
Abstract
In many (remote) rural areas of Europe and the world, rural communities are facing various challenges. One response is residents leaving their communities. However, there are also many empirical examples of residents staying, launching project initiatives, developing new solutions and experimenting with new [...] Read more.
In many (remote) rural areas of Europe and the world, rural communities are facing various challenges. One response is residents leaving their communities. However, there are also many empirical examples of residents staying, launching project initiatives, developing new solutions and experimenting with new practices. This is what we call social innovation. What experiences do actors have in these processes? Can we speak of empowerment? To what extent can such initiatives have an impact on community development? In this article, we explore these questions, for which there is little related empirical research. By applying a multi-sited individualising comparison to case studies in three European countries (Germany, Ireland and Portugal), we obtain empirical evidence of the following dimensions of empowerment that Avelino et al. outline conceptually: the achievement of autonomy, competence and relatedness and also impact, meaning and resilience. Often, however, it is not the individual actors for whom such effects can be reported. Rather, the social initiative as such or the local administration has acquired new skills and autonomy. Regarding community development, ‘pathways to impact’, such as infrastructure improvements and/or the creation of new employment opportunities and/or the influx of new residents, could be identified. However, this development often depended on both opportunity and the cooperation and goodwill of many stakeholders. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Social Innovation in Urban and Rural Areas: Empowerment, (Disruptive) Transformative Processes and Impact on Community Development)
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