The potential for social innovation in the revitalisation of Carpathian mountain communities Bill Slee The Rural Development Company Emeritus Fellow, The James Hutton Institute
My background • A social scientist (geography and rural development) • 30 years living in the same village • But now a real local resident not just someone who sleeps in the village • Involved and active in several third sector bodies
What I want to talk about • Contested meanings • Our SIMRA definition • A brief history of social innovation • Its contemporary relevance to marginal rural areas – some Scottish examples • The specific relevance to the Carpathian region • Critical points and obstacles in post socialist countries
On holiday last week • A friendly society to support poor and ill people (established in 1820) • A village shop where it is the only shop in the village • A traditional water powered corn mill now a charitable trust
Definitions and meanings • NB Not in the Oslo definition of innovation • Novelty vs solution? • Process or outcome? • The primacy of the social dimension? • Intentionality vs serendipity? • Reconfiguration of networks, structures, governance • Citizen-led or citizen-engaged? • Focus on disadvantaged groups only? • Often addressing “wicked” problems
What is social innovation? • Reconfiguring : doing “ the reconfiguring of social practices, in something differently response to societal • Addressing societal challenges, which seeks to challenges enhance outcomes on • Seeking enhanced societal well-being and societal wellbeing necessarily includes the • Involving active engagement of civil engagement of civil society actors ” society
The scope is almost limitless • Retail • The old dualism of market • Energy production and state is a mis- • Farm and forest management representation of how the • Financial services world is today • Food • The third sector is becoming • Social care for young, elderly, disabled etc. an ever more important • Tourism services player in delivering products • Environmental protection and services • Recycling • Civil society often ends up • Refugees picking up the pieces after • Transport the failure of market or states • Housing • Business support services
History and emergence • A long history connected to social movements (universal suffrage, abolition of slavery, community forestry, to Me Too) • Often social innovation is associated with dissatisfaction with status quo (19 th C factory villages; community forestry; large scale landholdings for hunting rather than production) • Mostly grounded in civil society action • Sometimes issue-based, sometimes place-based groups driving social innovation (sometimes both) • Sometimes suppressed; sometimes encouraged • Sometimes embodied in new policy
Where we are in rural Europe today Three (or four) sectors- Delivered by- • Primary • Markets • Secondary • Public sector • Tertiary • Third sector • (Quaternary) • Hybrid entities, e.g. partnerships It is the boxed bits that I want to focus on
A crisis-driven reorganisation of economic activity is taking place c. 1960-1980 2017 Private Private Public Public Third Third sector sector Western Isles Council Scotland
Social Innovation’s contemporary significance for marginal rural areas Generic drivers Marginal rural areas • Large proportion of old people • Weakesses of markets • Age-selective outmigration • Weaknesses in the • Overdependence on primary state’s capacity to act sector • Low added value per capita • High level of semi-subsistence activity • Low incomes/poverty • Weak infrastructures • A long way from centres of power
Some Scottish examples Two places Areas of activity • Portsoy pop 1700- a • Visitor attractions/tourism coastal community promotion • Renewable energy • Braemar pop 400 – a • Social care mountain village • Traditional skills (boat building; traditional building restoration) • Huntly pop 4000 a small • Food fairs town • Caravan sites and bunkhouses
• The trigger: a celebration of 300 years a harbour 25 years ago • The consequence: a vibrant community-owned development hub driving local development with new projects emerging to revitalise the place
This is what it looks like in practice
Braemar – a mountain community driven by a strong community development trust • Took over a castle as tourist attraction • Restored traditional rural buildings • Developed a community hydro scheme • Developed social care project • Developed community gardens • Now thinking about social needs housing project
Huntly: a small town with significant socio- economic challenges seeking positive change • Driven by municipal initiative that resulted in third sector development trust • Activities include recreation, tourism, green transport, farmers market, local food, microbusiness support • Getting a turbine as income stream was vital
Challenges in the Carpathians • Legacy effects of five decades of state socialism especially the all-embracing nature of the states activity • Weak development of civil society, distrust by state of some civil society organisations and a drift towards authoritarian nationalism in some countries • Fragility in the market economy - villages “dying” • Collective action tainted by past narratives of enforced collectivisation • Low levels of social capital • Weak institutional support mechanisms
Five critical points in delivering social innovation in the Carpathian region • Recognise what assets you have and build on them: the most low carbon lifestyles in Europe? • Accept the limits of action by the state and the market • Share good practice in social innovation and build on it • Build new partnerships of academics, state actors businesses and civil society to create action spaces to deliver sustainable development-rural lives are not constructed in silos! • Recognise the scope for the advantaged to become more advantaged
Five obstacles to be overcome • Break down the ivory towers and silos of science and recognise and build on different types of knowledge: local endogenous knowledge (but positive signs here) • Recognise and reduce the negative factors: corruption, mistrust and the drift towards authoritarian nationalism • Recognise weaknesses of civil society organisations (though improving), the need to strengthen them and the need to equalise opportunity • Step up in scale from the household to the community as the unit of response to these new times and new challenges • Create policies that nurture rather than stifle civil society action
If we can get the chemistry right Strong(er) the third sector social capital is can be highly The state needs needed, esp to deliver more bridging responsive – supportive and linking often better than framework capital policies markets or the state - in delivering local Social innovation The local state must sustainable must work alongside be trusted by civil development not displace markets society actors and that trust must be outcomes reciprocated
THANK YOU
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