designs and techniques, and inclusion in the programmes of governments, aid
agencies and business initiatives to assist marginalized groups (Cozzens and Sutz,
2014).
So the two worlds characterized in Table 7.1 actually interpenetrate one another.
In practice, we see a much more dynamic, complex and messy field of hybrids and
contestations working across the poles of grassroots and conventional STI presented
in Table 7.1. Much of the politics of green transformations from below will derive
from where participating groups are coming from in approaching a grassroots inno -
vative activity, how they are seeking to push and shape developments, as well as
the political strengths and creative capacities of the groups involved in these
negotiations, and how they are situated in terms of wider power relations.
Nevertheless, the analytical simplification in Table 7.1 points to a basic political
dynamic in green transformations from below: whether one is seeking to insert
the grassroots innovation into conventional STI institutions, or whether one is
seeking to mobilize around the grassroots innovation as emblematic of an insistent
need for new forms of innovation institutions, and new processes for doing
innovation. So even though grassroots innovations are perceived, understood and
approached by various actors in multiple ways, at heart tensions emerge between
strategies for bottom-up innovative activity that seek to adapt it into forms
amenable to assistance from prevailing STI institutions, and more overtly political
sensibilities whose aims are to transform the institutions of innovation and to open
them up through mobilization of grassroots innovation activity.
As Fressoli et al. (2014, p6) elaborate, insertion of grassroots innovations has
more of a technical, policy fix temper to it:
From the point of view of grassroots innovation movements, insertion
means fitting into prior spaces of innovation and playing by or adapting to
the rules of dominant institutions, technologies, regulations, etc. The reverse
side of the same movement may happen at the locus of top-down engage -
ment, where mainstream institutions seek to insert and capture ideas, elements
and even models from grassroots innovation movements, adapting them to
their own agendas and practices.
The scope for doing green transformation differently and pursuing alternative
pathways in grassroots innovation is reduced by insertion. Fressoli et al. (2014, p7)
go on to argue:
If this occurs, giving way to policy disagreements, or if mainstream STI
institutions are impenetrable to GIM [grassroots innovation movement]
proposals, a second mode of engagement can arise. This happens when there
is mobilisation or resistance of grassroots to incumbent regimes, with the aim
of developing pathways toward alterna tive innovation systems. In this way,
mobilisation implies direct attempts to transform the spaces of innovation
by challenging the dominant practices, technologies, power relations and
Green transformations from below? 109
agencies and business initiatives to assist marginalized groups (Cozzens and Sutz,
2014).
So the two worlds characterized in Table 7.1 actually interpenetrate one another.
In practice, we see a much more dynamic, complex and messy field of hybrids and
contestations working across the poles of grassroots and conventional STI presented
in Table 7.1. Much of the politics of green transformations from below will derive
from where participating groups are coming from in approaching a grassroots inno -
vative activity, how they are seeking to push and shape developments, as well as
the political strengths and creative capacities of the groups involved in these
negotiations, and how they are situated in terms of wider power relations.
Nevertheless, the analytical simplification in Table 7.1 points to a basic political
dynamic in green transformations from below: whether one is seeking to insert
the grassroots innovation into conventional STI institutions, or whether one is
seeking to mobilize around the grassroots innovation as emblematic of an insistent
need for new forms of innovation institutions, and new processes for doing
innovation. So even though grassroots innovations are perceived, understood and
approached by various actors in multiple ways, at heart tensions emerge between
strategies for bottom-up innovative activity that seek to adapt it into forms
amenable to assistance from prevailing STI institutions, and more overtly political
sensibilities whose aims are to transform the institutions of innovation and to open
them up through mobilization of grassroots innovation activity.
As Fressoli et al. (2014, p6) elaborate, insertion of grassroots innovations has
more of a technical, policy fix temper to it:
From the point of view of grassroots innovation movements, insertion
means fitting into prior spaces of innovation and playing by or adapting to
the rules of dominant institutions, technologies, regulations, etc. The reverse
side of the same movement may happen at the locus of top-down engage -
ment, where mainstream institutions seek to insert and capture ideas, elements
and even models from grassroots innovation movements, adapting them to
their own agendas and practices.
The scope for doing green transformation differently and pursuing alternative
pathways in grassroots innovation is reduced by insertion. Fressoli et al. (2014, p7)
go on to argue:
If this occurs, giving way to policy disagreements, or if mainstream STI
institutions are impenetrable to GIM [grassroots innovation movement]
proposals, a second mode of engagement can arise. This happens when there
is mobilisation or resistance of grassroots to incumbent regimes, with the aim
of developing pathways toward alterna tive innovation systems. In this way,
mobilisation implies direct attempts to transform the spaces of innovation
by challenging the dominant practices, technologies, power relations and
Green transformations from below? 109