Crises redefined: towards new spaces for social innovation in inner areas?

ABSTRACT

This article explores the relationship between the emergence of a ‘crisis society', social innovation and community resilience in Italian inner areas. Arguing that the concept of ‘crisis society' – as a further development of a ‘risk society’ – can help to frame both the increasing of uncertainty and the possibility for social change, the paper outlines a theoretical reflection on how context of crisis can influence social arrangements and forms of solidarity. In particular, it proposes to adopt the analytical lenses of social innovation and community resilience to discuss the relation between crisis, local dynamism and collective action. Secondly, it identifies Italian inner areas as an interesting field of research were to analyse how innovative initiatives and narratives can emerge in context of crisis, with a special focus on the Covid-19 pandemic. Without denying the negative consequences of this crisis, this early research paper sheds light on how crisis can be redefined on a double level. Firstly, by opening new windows of opportunities for collective action and bottom-up resilience. Secondly, by reframing inner areas, usually represented as vulnerable territories, as spaces where the creative capacity of local community can emerge. Finally, the paper identifies further trajectories of investigation for empirical research.

KEYWORDS:

• Social innovation
• crisis
• Covid-19 pandemic
• resilience
• inner areas

Acknowledgement

The authors worked together on the conceptualisation and construction of this article. However, Melissa Moralli was mostly in charge of section 2, while Giulia Allegrini was in charge of section 3. Paragraphs 1, 4 and 5 were developed together.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to the National Strategy for Inner areas, which is the main institutional strategy adopted by Italian government to intervene in marginal areas, ‘inner areas’ can be defined as ‘those areas significantly distant from the centres of supply of essential services (education, health, and mobility), rich in environmental and cultural resources with highly diversified natural aspects’. For further information, please visit: https://www.agenziacoesione.gov.it/lacoesione/le-politiche-di-coesione-in-italia-2014-2020/strategie-delle-politiche-di-coesione/strategia-nazionale-per-le-aree-interne/ [Accessed Dec 30 2020].

2 CRISES (Centre de Recherche sur les Innovations Sociales) is an institutional centre founded in 1986 that refers to the Faculty of Humanities (FSH) and the School of Management Sciences (ESG) of the University of Quebec at Montréal and mainly studies ‘social innovations and social transformations’. https://crises.uqam.ca/ [Accessed July 16 2020].

3 The concept of resilience is used as an analytical category also in the specific field of ‘disaster studies’ (Mela et al. 2016). However, in this contribution we decide to position the concept of resilience in its relationship with the frame of social innovation and with the concept of ‘crisis society’.

4 This early stage of the research has been conducted from March to June 2020. The sources we used were newspaper articles, social media, blogs, institutional documents (at international, national, and regional level), reportages. Moreover, it was fundamental the participation in discussion groups, seminars, web meetings and conferences (21 in total) on the topic of Covid-19 and inner areas. Some examples are the seminar ‘L’Italia è bella dentro: storie di resilienza, innovazione e ritorno nelle aree interne’ (Italy is beautiful inside: stories of resilience, innovation and migration towards inner areas) (June 2020), or ‘Riabitare i Piccoli Borghi’ (Re-Inhabit Small Villages) (April 2020).

5 Although numerous initiatives were launched by local and national public institutions it is specifically through the development of bottom-up initiatives that the local communities from inner areas are showing different signs of active resilience. Moreover, since it is an early stage of research, we are still developing our research activities in order to have a complex scenario of social innovation, that can help to understand how ‘bottom-link’ process of social innovation can occur, influencing also public institutions and policies. However, some examples can be named here: the call launched by the region Emilia-Romagna to sustain a total of 119 municipalities with 10 million euros, by helping those who intend to buy/renovate a real estate in the Apennines area, or the initiatives launched in the tourism sector, such as the idea to replace the ‘tourist tax’ with the ‘tourist award’, promoted by the mayor of Valle dell’Angelo, in Campania Region.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa Moralli

Melissa Moralli is Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Business Law, University of Bologna. She holds a Phd in Sociology and Social Research focused on social innovations intended as bottom-up processes and practices initiated by civil society actors. She is visiting scholar at CRISES (Centre de Recherche sur les Innovations Sociales, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada), IPK (Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University, USA) and CRISES Redifined (University of Jyväskylä, Finland). Her research interests are social innovation, migration and sustainable consumption.

Giulia Allegrini

Giulia Allegrini Phd in Sociology, is currently Research Fellow at the Department of Art, University of Bologna. Her research interests focus on collective civic engagement, cultural co-production process, informal collaboration in the regeneration of urban commons. She has worked in many participatory action-research projects at national and European level.