Smith, Adrian, Fressoli, Mariano and Thomas, Hernán (2014) Grassroots innovation movements: challenges and contributions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63. pp. 114-124. ISSN 0959-6526

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Abstract

Technologies for social inclusion in Latin America are a recent manifestation of grassroots innovation movements whose activities go back to appropriate technology in the 1970s and earlier. Common to these movements is a vision for innovation processes more inclusive towards local communities in terms of knowledge, processes and outcomes. A comparison in this article between movements for technologies for social inclusion now and appropriate technology in the past reveals three enduring challenges for grassroots innovation: attending to local specificities whilst simultaneously seeking wide-scale diffusion; being appropriate to existing situations that one ultimately seeks to transform; and, working with project-based solutions to goals (of social justice) whose root causes rest in structures of economic and political power. Each challenge effectively frames grassroots knowledge creation differently: local ingenuity; local empowerment; and structural critique. Overall, these movements’ contribute valuable plurality and reflexivity to innovation policy and politics.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	University of Sussex Business School > SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Depositing User:	Adrian Smith
Date Deposited:	15 Mar 2013 09:47
Last Modified:	27 Jun 2014 12:13
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/42360

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