communities concerned, careful recognition of individual inventors by name, etc.
(Gupta, 2013) reflect this concern to focus and build grassroots ingenuity, rather
than expropriate it.
Certainly, the risks exist. Grassroots innovation can be co-opted as the latest
term for the development industry, providing a new way of thinking about a
relatively passive site for either appropriating ideas or inserting ready-made solutions,
with little reflection on the grassroots as active subjects in innovations and
appropriations of their own.
In our view, however, this is a criticism that calls for greater reflexivity towards
grassroots innovation processes rather than circumscribed definitions. Even tightly
defined notions focusing on grassroots ingenuity can involve encounters beyond
the communities concerned. Even well-intended assistance for grassroots ingenuity
can transform it through, for example, the introduction of intellectual property
for the purposes of protecting benefits, standardizing for purposes of scaling up,
and commodification for the purposes of attracting investment and marketing.
All are processes that decontextualize the innovation and turn it into an object
removed from the originating grassroots processes. More positively, the inevitable
tacit knowledge and local experience required to domesticate any technology
can provide some levers for local communities to influence the introduction and
development of ‘solutions’ arising initially from beyond. This can include resisting
or neglecting the innovation and in practice, we find that many grassroots innovations involve a bricolage and hybridization of indigenous and imported knowledge,
skills, objects, resources, and so forth.
So another framing of grassroots innovation focuses not so much on the location
of ingenuity, as on the power relations involved in developing solutions and the
ways that grassroots actors can be empowered or build their own power to exert
greater influence over developments in their social worlds, but also co-opted and
overwhelmed by more powerful agendas. Certainly, appropriate technology
projects in the past were intended to empower the target beneficiaries (in some
cases whether the beneficiaries wanted them or not), and included instances where
this was done clumsily and failed to attend fully to local power relations, or served
to co-opt certain groups and issues.
One example illustrating this dynamic is the Cisterna (or ‘One Million Cisterns’)
programme that sought to bring water to rural communities in Brazil. As originally
conceived, the initiative introduced possible designs and materials for rainwater
harvesting to communities, but it was the communities themselves that developed
their capabilities through the build process and who exercised autonomy over the
water they provided for themselves. Building the power to do grassroots innovation
can be a strongly held aspiration. When the Brazilian government sought to accel -
erate the provision of rainwater harvesting by distributing more rapidly installed
plastic water-butts, the pioneering social movement organized protests to remind
the Cisterna programme about the ethos behind the original self-build process.
Simply installing this technology provided neither the space nor processes for
development workers and local community members to address issues that affect
106 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely
(Gupta, 2013) reflect this concern to focus and build grassroots ingenuity, rather
than expropriate it.
Certainly, the risks exist. Grassroots innovation can be co-opted as the latest
term for the development industry, providing a new way of thinking about a
relatively passive site for either appropriating ideas or inserting ready-made solutions,
with little reflection on the grassroots as active subjects in innovations and
appropriations of their own.
In our view, however, this is a criticism that calls for greater reflexivity towards
grassroots innovation processes rather than circumscribed definitions. Even tightly
defined notions focusing on grassroots ingenuity can involve encounters beyond
the communities concerned. Even well-intended assistance for grassroots ingenuity
can transform it through, for example, the introduction of intellectual property
for the purposes of protecting benefits, standardizing for purposes of scaling up,
and commodification for the purposes of attracting investment and marketing.
All are processes that decontextualize the innovation and turn it into an object
removed from the originating grassroots processes. More positively, the inevitable
tacit knowledge and local experience required to domesticate any technology
can provide some levers for local communities to influence the introduction and
development of ‘solutions’ arising initially from beyond. This can include resisting
or neglecting the innovation and in practice, we find that many grassroots innovations involve a bricolage and hybridization of indigenous and imported knowledge,
skills, objects, resources, and so forth.
So another framing of grassroots innovation focuses not so much on the location
of ingenuity, as on the power relations involved in developing solutions and the
ways that grassroots actors can be empowered or build their own power to exert
greater influence over developments in their social worlds, but also co-opted and
overwhelmed by more powerful agendas. Certainly, appropriate technology
projects in the past were intended to empower the target beneficiaries (in some
cases whether the beneficiaries wanted them or not), and included instances where
this was done clumsily and failed to attend fully to local power relations, or served
to co-opt certain groups and issues.
One example illustrating this dynamic is the Cisterna (or ‘One Million Cisterns’)
programme that sought to bring water to rural communities in Brazil. As originally
conceived, the initiative introduced possible designs and materials for rainwater
harvesting to communities, but it was the communities themselves that developed
their capabilities through the build process and who exercised autonomy over the
water they provided for themselves. Building the power to do grassroots innovation
can be a strongly held aspiration. When the Brazilian government sought to accel -
erate the provision of rainwater harvesting by distributing more rapidly installed
plastic water-butts, the pioneering social movement organized protests to remind
the Cisterna programme about the ethos behind the original self-build process.
Simply installing this technology provided neither the space nor processes for
development workers and local community members to address issues that affect
106 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely