How (Western) values and ways of knowing drive social innovation
While visiting the MaRS Solutions Lab (MSL) in Toronto as an International Fellow in May 2018 I had the opportunity to observe social innovation in action. A theme that emerged in multiple conversations during my stay was how our (Western) values and ways of knowing drive what we do. This is relevant in the context of social innovation, because these values often remain unexpressed. While private sector innovation is still mainly driven by economic values and competitive advantage, social innovation practitioners are driven by values that impact broader society, including ‘people’ and ‘planet’. Social innovation agencies might differ with regard to the amount of focus they place on people versus planet versus profit. MSL works according to the triple bottom line, recognising that society, environment and economy are all interconnected. This is reflected in the organisations they choose to collaborate with and the type of projects they work on. For example, the Procurement by Co-Design project (further explained here) is a very interesting collaboration between health providers, technology businesses, and government and clearly has both social and economic benefits.
Democracy and inclusion in social innovation
The focus on providing value for society means that inclusion, participation and democracy are considered important values underlying the way of working at MSL. Currently many innovation endeavours are ‘elitist’ in the sense that they are open to only a selected group of stakeholders, and that it requires a specific language and skills to participate. Alex Ryan talked about the idea of ‘inclusive urban innovation’ and ‘participatory systems change’, aimed at creating platforms and languages that promote inclusion of anyone who is going to be impacted by certain innovations. This allows bringing in diverse perspectives and ways of knowing which ultimately improves innovation outcomes. It also includes providing people with learning experiences that allows them to become innovators themselves.
Including nature and our hearts in social innovation
We cannot think our way out of this mess
Another theme related to values that was mentioned many times during my stay was the way that our Western values influence the way we work and think about social innovation, and how we could ‘decolonise’ social innovation, building on different, non-western ways of knowing. A very interesting experience in that respect was the Design with Dialogue session I participated in at OCAD University, titled ‘Wampums and watersheds: on the path of restoration’ or how ‘indigenous knowledge is the best, perhaps only hope for addressing climate change’. The format of the session was an inclusive talking circle, where everyone sits in a circle and gets a chance to express their thoughts. The session was led by Kevin Best and captured in below visualisation.
This was a fantastic learning experience, both in the way the session promoted inclusion (through the talking circle) and the ways of knowing expressed in relation to the ‘heart’ and ‘nature’. Where in western ways of knowing we focus on our cognitive and reasoning skills, indigenous ways of knowing also include the heart. When it comes to complex societal issues we tend to use our reasoning skills, but, as the facilitator mentioned ‘we cannot think our way out of this mess’. How can we start including more of our hearts then in social innovation? The other important lesson I took away from the session was our connection to nature, and the ways of knowing embedded in nature. The key question was: how can we let nature guide us? A concept difficult to grasp for a Dutch person coming from a country that aims to completely control nature and is famous for ‘water management’. However, as many events related to climate change show, we simply cannot control nature. If social innovation is driven by inclusion of diverse perspectives and ways of knowing, then how can we start including nature in that process?
