Defining Social Innovation (and the Humanities' Role in It)

Vienna.
The second day at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 has begun, and I’m in a session on the contribution of humanities research to the question of social innovation. Chair Milena Žic Fuchs begins by noting that the humanities play a critical role to the development of critical and independent thought, as well as a range of other important contributions made in this space (and I’m afraid I’m not quite sure whether these were simply opening remarks or a proper paper, so I’ve not blogged a great deal of this…).

Co-chair Rüdiger Klein now takes over by suggesting that humanities contributions to social innovation research need to take into account the breadth and depth of the dimensions of this question. He also notes the unease that we still have when using the term social innovation – we need to reflect further on the concept.

But the first speaker proper is Joseph Lo Bianco, whose interest is especially in the use of deliberation methods for the resolution of conflicts that are driven by language; as a scholar of language, he picks up on the linguistic aspects of the question of what the humanities can contribute to social innovation especially when that practice is defined by policymakers. There also is the question of what we mean by the humanities, of course – in some languages, they are seen to be included in the sciences; in others, not. ‘Science’ should simply mean scholarly and academic, rather than narrowly ‘scientific’ research – and humanities fits the former rather than the latter description. They provide a human perspective from within the subject matter.

Innovation is fundamentally evolutionary; it is a discursive process. This process is not narrowly scientific, then, because it depends on uncertainty and constant discursive definition and redefinition of ideas; we pool knowledge and continually construct new understandings. The same is true for broader trends in society; isolated knowledge is disappearing and socially constructed and socially embedded modes of thought are becoming every more important.

Social innovation itself is far more ancient than any of the languages we’re using to discuss it, though – the first tools used by palaeolithic humans were social innovations as well. Similarly, early universities were international before they became national; today’s internationalisation of the university system simply returns to that state. At their best, then, the humanities could be a border-disrupting intrusion into how we might define social innovation; the poetics and politics of disrupted borders should be introduced into how we approach social innovation today.