A Decolonial Approach to Innovation? Building Paths Towards Buen Vivir

Figures & data

Table 1. Theories of development and innovation

Theory of development (period)	Framings of development	Role of innovation
Modernisation (1950–1960)	Development is the result of adopting and adapting values and strategies from industrialised, developed countries for economic growth.	Innovation is instrumental for industrialisation, adopting, and transferring international innovation trends in a process of catch-up.
Dependency (1960–1979)	Development involves a process of strengthening national sovereignty, decentring the power from industrialised, developed countries.	Domestic innovations increase productivity in strategic sectors for national economies.
Neoliberal (1980–onwards)	Development is achieved by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms within a framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.	Entrepreneurs as key actors in the promotion of innovation to enhance market efficiency. Private sector as prominent actor in development. Innovation is key for people to lift themselves out of poverty on their own.

Table 2. Logic that guides innovation processes in the Park

Three principles for innovation	Main theoretical contents or defining concepts from Buen Vivir	Expression in the Potato Park
Innovation as the result of mutual reciprocity between epistemic communities and non-human nature (decentring the Western cannon)	Rights to nature (Broad & Fischer-Mackey, 2017; Gordon, 2019)	Community protocols for knowledge-sharing with external actors; organic farming practises; discourses of Pachamama
Innovation as a collective deliberation process (bottom-up governance and reciprocity)	Communitarian Economy (Ramírez-Cendrero et al., 2017, Giovannini, 2012; Villalba-Eguiluz et al., 2020; Villalba-Eguiluz & Pérez-De-Mendiguren, 2019)	Inter-community protocols; Collective trademarks for innovations
Innovation as a venture that acknowledges and operates within ecological boundaries (non-scaling, sustainable)	Food sovereignty (Calderón Farfán et al., 2021; Guardiola & García-Quero, 2014).	Micro-enterprises; product innovations; use of non-industrial products

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