The Role of Agency in the Emergence and Development of Social Innovations in Rural Areas. Analysis of Two Cases of Social Farming in Italy and The Netherlands

Abstract

Social innovation is considered a relevant concept to tackle societal challenges and needs in rural areas and to promote smart, inclusive and sustainable growth. The characterising sector of rural areas is agriculture; therefore, the focus of this paper is on social innovation in the field of social farming. Among the many factors leading to the emergence and development of social innovation, agency has been considered relevant in the literature on transformability and transformative social innovation as it is the ability to turn contextual difficulties into opportunities for social innovation and for inclusive growth. This paper proposes an evaluation framework to assess the different dimensions of agency by triangulating quantitative with qualitative data and by using indicators. This paper adopts a case study approach, analysing two cases of social farming in Italy and the Netherlands. The results show that the social innovation idea and the resilience of the agency are among the most relevant dimensions for the emergence and development of social innovations. Finally, this paper discusses the three most relevant factors for agency to lead to social innovation: idea and embeddedness of the agency, transformability of the context through agency´s resilience, and agency as catalyst for empowerment.

Can Social Innovation Make a Change in European and Mediterranean Marginalized Areas? Social Innovation Impact Assessment in Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, and Rural Development

“…Our empirical results corroborate the literature on the effects of innovations in existing relationships, community ties, and new forms of collaboration to have positive effects on the modernization of public administration, on the reduction of bureaucracy, and on the level of efficiency in the delivery of services in the public sector (governance domains). Our results agree with the literature reporting that SI initiatives that make services available to communities and to specific vulnerable groups (social domain) can generate effects on the economic domain in different ways (e.g., increase employment opportunities, provide resources for generating other activities, and the development of human capital potential) [16,46,58,88,96]. Finally, the economic impacts may have effects on the social domains in terms of a reduction of inequalities and in the improvement of wellbeing, such as improving community relationships (e.g., intergenerational relationships, integration of vulnerable groups) [62,73].…”

Reconstructive Social Innovation Cycles in Women-Led Initiatives in Rural Areas

“…Key phases of the analytical abductive process applied are summarized in Supplementary Materials. [32,46,51]). Workshop for discussing of results from previous empirical work.…”

“…For instance, social innovation in the form of social entrepreneurship provides rural women with opportunities for work, empowering them by enabling creation of micro-enterprises [38], and increasing women's access to income, and motivating them to be involved in political activities [8,32]. Furthermore, via social innovations that respond to rural community needs, women are increasingly being recognized as leaders and entrepreneurs in their communities [32,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]. Social innovations can also help women to develop their management strategies and marketing skills for improving and expanding their businesses [38,40].…”

What Are the Impacts of Social Innovation? A Synthetic Review and Case Study of Community Forestry in the Scottish Highlands

“…Our case study approach focused on obtaining a deep understanding of the perception of local actors, using a purposeful sample of the key stakeholders and actors of the SI rather than a quantitatively representative sample of the SI actors [62]. Such an approach is used in qualitative research e.g., [63] to obtain accurate information on the perceptions of actors on specific issues that can be measured using a rating scale that quantitatively assesses opinions, attitudes, or behaviours (e.g., via Likert scale).…”