Creatively transforming periphery? Artists’ initiatives, social innovation, and responsibility for place

ABSTRACT

Creativity and geography have received little attention in the literature on responsible innovation. To address these shortcomings, the article places responsible innovation explicitly in a territorial and non-technocentric context by exploring how artist-led social innovation takes ‘responsibility for place’. The article is guided by the following research question: How can artist initiatives shape sustainable regional development in peripheral areas? To address this research question, the author draws on a conceptualization of artist-led social innovation processes geared to ‘deperipheralization’ that is applied to study two initiatives – Ifö Center in Bromölla, Sweden, and Rjukan Solarpunk Academy, in Rjukan, Norway – situated in peripheral old industrial towns. The study reveals a variety of ways by which artists can be agents of change that transform places but at the same time take responsibility for inclusion and participation. The author concludes that through social innovation, artists' initiatives can empower local citizens and other actors to experiment collectively with unconventional ideas related to social and environmental sustainability and take responsibility for place. The social innovations studied have enacted responsibility for development objectives that are intrinsically significant due to an ethos of care in both a temporal sense (care for future) and a spatial sense (care for place).

KEYWORDS:

• artists
• creativity
• peripheral areas
• responsible innovation
• social innovation

Acknowledgments

I thank Ifö Center in Bromölla, Rjukan Solarpunk Academy, and the interviewees for their invaluable time and for sharing their insights. The article benefited from collaborations through the project Just Mobility Transitions Network, coordinated by Associate Professor Siddharth Sareen at University of Stavanger. Many thanks are owed to Professor Flor Avelino and Professor Tobba Therkildsen Sudmann, as well as Professor Lars Coenen for helpful feedback on early drafts of the article. I am also grateful for the constructive comments from four anonymous reviewers and the guest editors of the special issue.

Notes

1 All translations from Norwegian and Swedish into English were done by the author of this article (Karin Coenen).

2 Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question of what a sustainable civiliztion looks like and can it be attained.

3 The initiative is part of the research programme ‘Empowered Futures: A Global Research School Navigating the Social and Environmental Controversies of Low-Carbon Energy Transitions’ funded by the Research Council of Norway.