7. Environmental Grassroots Partnerships and Potential for Social Innovation

This chapter reviews the concept of social innovation (SI) towards two sets of ecological questions: How can local management actions strengthen ecosystem response to crises? Through what organizational arrangements are ecosystem responses coordinated? The first part of this chapter reviews the concept of social innovation; the second part presents cases from southwest Rajasthan and west Yunnan on social innovation, based on fieldwork conducted in January and August 2011. The cases describe SIs that vary in scale and technology: beehives; improved wood burning stoves; pump sets; working groups to raise funds and share technology; working groups to clean shared water sources; community forest wardens; village councils for water sharing and commons access; and seed banks, land regeneration, child care, and night schools. However these cases can be read as not only demonstrating social innovation but also, in terms of critiques of the policies of neoliberal governments, and in terms of narrative ruptures, puzzles that reveal the push and pull of agential interests in the realm of ecology. The final part of the chapter argues for a focus on the politics of social innovation. As a term SI signifies the possibilities for shifting power structures through networked engagement. Networks including of NGOs must work with state governments to mobilize local people with their own interests. This requires a variety of groups, such as village councils, state-mandated bodies, registered NGOs, and networks, to negotiate and mobilize around ecological response.