Mapping Socially Innovative Actors And Their Relation With Institutions. Critical Insights From Italy”

In Book of Abstract AESOP 2024 – p.867

© Caruso, Ostanel, Pappalardo 

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ABSTRACT

Within the wide constellation of actors operating in the contemporary planning arena, citizen-led groups are gaining ground in promoting so-called socially innovative initiatives (Moulaert et al, 2013): voluntary, non- statutory practices implemented to respond to the need for services or goods that used to be provided by the State or local agencies. Socially innovative groups can be organized and structured in various forms and, in the case of Italy, many of them have recently been institutionalized as “third sector organizations” under the current national normative framework. The rising presence of such organizations within urban planning arena opens the question of what power dynamics their presence does contribute to nurture or inhibit, as well questions related with exclusive paths, or organizations’ representativeness and legitimacy when taking over public institutions’ responsibilities. Some may also ask if is there a correlation between the increasing rely on social innovation, and the ascending role of private consultants that are replacing the work of public servants, within a problematic shift toward the so-called processes of “consultocracy” (Craig and Brooks, 2006).As a matter of fact, while many have praised the multiple benefits of socially innovative practices (Galego et al., 2022), there is a growing concern over the evidence that such practices are also used by public authorities to justify their disengagement from public action (Fougère & Meriläinen, 2021), and many agree on the fact that socially innovative groups alone can unrealistically find progressive and long-lasting solutions for a whole range of deep-rooted problems (Savini and Bertolini, 2019).In this changing scenario, we still miss a comprehensive and critical understanding on the relationship of socially innovative groups with institutions and their impact on urban planning. What are the different forms of the relationship between such groups and public institutions, and what effects they produce in different spatial and social contexts?Within such framework, this contribution tries to challenge an ‘over romantic’ understanding of the relation between social innovation (SI) practices and local institutions, analysing the SI-institutions nexus in 3 diverse Italian regional contexts, from north to south (Piedmont, Veneto, and Sicily).
The contribution tries to identify different or recurring typos of SI-institutions relations in such contexts (such as forms of collaboration, conflict, agonism, trading zones, etc.), and to compare them, exploring their relations with contextual patterns.The authors will present the preliminary results of an analysis of the spatial dimension of SI-institutions relationship, based on a map produced through on desk-research of several funded SI-projects in the regions, as well as relying on authors’ direct engagement in planning processes characterised by the presence of socially innovative practices, and interviews with key-actors.

Social innovative initiatives are selected according to the definition of SI in terms of: i) initiatives led by citizens (grouped in different ways) ii) aimed at responding to the negative effects of urban change or to the need for adequate services or public goods that used to be provided by the State or its local agencies iii) experiment spaces of autonomy and/or forms of interaction with local institutions.Results give insights on the 3 analysed Italian regional contexts, offering an understanding of the evolving character of the SI-Institutions relations and their impact on planning processes, through an interactive GIS mapping platform collecting open data. This contribution is funded through the research project “RESISTING – Reconnecting Social innovation with InSTitutions in urban plannING” conducted in Italy as a Research Project of National Interest within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRIN NRRP 2022; P2022YZTB7).