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

Abstract

Social innovations can tackle various challenges related to gender equity in rural areas, especially when such innovations are initiated and developed by women themselves. We examine cases located in rural areas of Canada, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, and Serbia, where women are marginalized by gender roles, patriarchal values, male dominated economy and policy, and lack of opportunities for education and employment. Our objective is to analyze five case studies on how women-led social innovation processes can tackle gender equity related challenges manifested at the levels of everyday practice, institutions, and cognitive frames. The analyses are based on interviews, workshops, literature screening, and are examined via the qualitative abductive method. Results summarize challenges that rural women are facing, explore social innovation initiatives as promising solutions, and analyze their implications on gender equity in the five case studies. Based on our results we propose a new concept: reconstructive social innovation cycle. It refers to is defined as cyclical innovation processes that engage women via civil society initiatives. These initiatives reconstruct the existing state of affairs, by questioning marginalizing and discriminative practices, institutions, and cognitive frames that are often perceived as normal. The new concept helps with to assessing the implications that women-led social innovations have for gender equity.

The authors are grateful to the European Commission for financial support to the project on Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas (SIMRA) provided from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 677622. Contribution of the author from the James Hutton Institute to this study was also partly funded by the Rural & Environment Science & Analytical Services Division of the Scottish Government through its Strategic Research Programme (2016–2021). The Nunavut/Canada case study was supported by Nordforsk Nordic Centre of Excellence: Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities (REXSAC: project number 76938).