existing institutional frameworks and seeking to insert promising ideas and practices
results in the transformation of grassroots innovation processes into object forms.
Conversely, a more political approach to grassroots innovation seeks to transform
wider institutions through the possibilities that grassroots innovation activities offer
for mobilization. Only the latter is really about green transformations from below.
Whether in the global North or South, these imply more anarchic, messy and
ongoing processes of change in contrast to the ordered and mechanical transitions
envisaged within ‘green economy’ narratives.
Historical studies suggest that structures of political economy are vital in enabling
or constraining the possibilities envisaged for ‘transformations from below’. The
potential for communities to exercise their power to ‘do’ innovation is made so
much easier by concurrent power ‘over’ innovation agendas, pointing to the
centrality of struggles for democracy in green transformations. At the same time,
the actual process of innovating at the grassroots itself serves to shift the democratic
balance and to (re-)position power at the grassroots level.
Thus the perspective on grassroots innovation developed in this chapter views
it as expressing a grassroots politics of sustainability through processes of practical
reasoning across local activities. The politics of grassroots innovation manifests itself
through practical experimentation, learning, organizing and mobilization that
enables communities to position themselves in opposition to the unsustainable and
unjust systems that to a significant extent characterize our world, and to build up
their power to develop alternatives. In continuing to negotiate and attempting
to enact ‘transformations from below’, grassroots innovation movements are
challenging the conventional boundaries, definitions and agendas of more elite
innovation institutions, e.g. elite emphasis on a capital-intensive ‘cleantech’ and
financialized green economy. At heart, this is a struggle over the democratization
of innovations and green transformations.
Acknowledgements
Research underpinning this chapter comes from a variety of projects funded by
UK Research Councils. We are grateful to colleagues collaborating in these
projects. For their collegiality and insights we wish to thank Dinesh Abrol, Elisa
Arond, Jacob Barnes, Rachael Durrant, Tom Hargreaves, Sabine Hielscher,
Mariano Fressoli, Mari Martiskainen, Jin Park and Gill Seyfang.
118 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely
results in the transformation of grassroots innovation processes into object forms.
Conversely, a more political approach to grassroots innovation seeks to transform
wider institutions through the possibilities that grassroots innovation activities offer
for mobilization. Only the latter is really about green transformations from below.
Whether in the global North or South, these imply more anarchic, messy and
ongoing processes of change in contrast to the ordered and mechanical transitions
envisaged within ‘green economy’ narratives.
Historical studies suggest that structures of political economy are vital in enabling
or constraining the possibilities envisaged for ‘transformations from below’. The
potential for communities to exercise their power to ‘do’ innovation is made so
much easier by concurrent power ‘over’ innovation agendas, pointing to the
centrality of struggles for democracy in green transformations. At the same time,
the actual process of innovating at the grassroots itself serves to shift the democratic
balance and to (re-)position power at the grassroots level.
Thus the perspective on grassroots innovation developed in this chapter views
it as expressing a grassroots politics of sustainability through processes of practical
reasoning across local activities. The politics of grassroots innovation manifests itself
through practical experimentation, learning, organizing and mobilization that
enables communities to position themselves in opposition to the unsustainable and
unjust systems that to a significant extent characterize our world, and to build up
their power to develop alternatives. In continuing to negotiate and attempting
to enact ‘transformations from below’, grassroots innovation movements are
challenging the conventional boundaries, definitions and agendas of more elite
innovation institutions, e.g. elite emphasis on a capital-intensive ‘cleantech’ and
financialized green economy. At heart, this is a struggle over the democratization
of innovations and green transformations.
Acknowledgements
Research underpinning this chapter comes from a variety of projects funded by
UK Research Councils. We are grateful to colleagues collaborating in these
projects. For their collegiality and insights we wish to thank Dinesh Abrol, Elisa
Arond, Jacob Barnes, Rachael Durrant, Tom Hargreaves, Sabine Hielscher,
Mariano Fressoli, Mari Martiskainen, Jin Park and Gill Seyfang.
118 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely