Pairing Social Innovation and Resilience to Achieve Trans-formative Change

Abstract

This paper is a reflection on broadening understandings of innovation, using preliminary data on individual and collective repertoires of resilient practices in the context of multiple crises across Côte d’Ivoire. It explores how conceptual linkages between resilience thinking and social innovation (SI) can shift from innovative solutions to innovative ways of understanding problems to achieve transformative change. It argues that current conceptualisations of innovation are constrained within dominant technological and Western-centric paradigms that exclude vernacular innovation practices. Drawing from the relational dynamics between multiple crises in Côte d’Ivoire and vernacular responses thereto, it is observed that resilient practices harnessed through the complexity of social problems constitute innovative solutions that are perpetuated across time, scales and space. It, therefore, argues that pairing resilience and innovation uncovers how SI can be both transformative and continuous.