The Hygienic Problem of Social Innovation Work: Reversibility and Oscillations between “the Social” and “the Economic”

Abstract

In recent years, social innovation has received attention as a promising solution to societal challenges, not least because of its claims to create a symbiosis between social purposes and economic benefits. The often uneasy relation between social values and economic values is, however, not easily resolved in practice. Based on ethnographic research in the field of social innovation in Denmark, we argue that the relation between “the social” and “the economic,” representing different value logics, is essentially one of reversibility. The two each encompass their apparent opposite within themselves. This reversible relation elicits a number of challenging oscillations when social innovation is enacted in practice. We term this the hygienic problem of social innovation work. Too much or too little of either the social or the economic contaminates and obfuscates the endeavor of social innovation. As a result, people who do social innovation work seek to enact the “right” or “pure” relation between social and economic concerns. We suggest, however, that the potential of social innovation lies not in this search for purity. Rather, the instability of these categories prompts a continual exploration and creative rethinking of how the intersection of society and business may unfold.

In Search of Newness

“…Among anthropologists, this preoccupation with, and search for, newness has not gone unnoticed. Not least in business anthropology, a broad range of publications on creativity (Moeran and Christensen 2013;Moeran 2014), innovation (Lex 2016;Mikkelsen and Vangkilde 2021), and entrepreneurship (Briody and Stewart 2019;Pfeilstetter 2021), as well as related themes -such as design (Murphy 2016;Smith et al 2016), anticipation (Vangkilde 2015;Garsten and Sörbom 2021), and futures (Salazer et al 2017;Brandt and Vangkilde 2023) -have come out in the past decade. While some of these publications focus on the relevance and contributions of anthropology in processes of actively and strategically generating newness, others are more interested in critically uncovering the cultural imaginaries and socio-political processes underlying attempts to bring forth "the new."…”

Beyond the Vanishing Point: Using Future Self Theory and Student-Alumni Interviews to Expand Student Perspectives on Engineering Education and Engineering Work

“…Such anecdotes reveal a clash between social and economic value, an emerging topic in the Anthropology of Work. Ethnographers [11] and [12] offer a more optimistic approach as they challenge the perceived antagonism between the social and the economic and suggest that such relationships can, in fact, be symbiotic. In other words, with proper guidance on how to negotiate the social-personal with the economic-professional, engineering students can gain more clarity in envisioning how they can make a meaningful impact on society, especially upon entering the workforce.…”

“…Furthermore, [11] contends that the relationship between the social and the economic plays a significant role in the process of identity formation: "The search [for identity] entails specific modes of acting and being that have particular subject effects," and people's identities "emerge through their engagement" in work, especially in the field of social work. The field of engineering not only solves technical problems but social ones as well.…”