CfP for the session on: “Beyond ‘scaling up’: spatial perspectives on social innovation” at the conference “Social Innovation 2015: Pathways to Social Change” 18 – 19th November, Vienna (Austria)

The discourse of ‘scaling up’ social innovations initiatives continues to pre-occupy practitioner networks and parts of the academic literature. Whilst this focus is understandable – and in many cases laudable – it is often based on an underdeveloped notion of scale and a neglect of the wider spatial dimensions of social innovation. The purpose of this session is to open up a wider conversation about the relevance of place, space and scale for social innovation. In particular the session will focus on social and material constitution of spaces. It is concerned with understanding how social practices, institutional forces, and socio material complexity shape the spaces and places of social innovation.

Questions that papers might address include (but are not limited to):

• What kinds of spaces and places are relevant for social innovation? How are they produced? How do particular spaces / places shape social innovation processes?
• Can we speak of particular geographies of social innovation?
• What can a critique of the ‘scaling up’ discourse provide? What other spatial metaphors might replace the scalar?

Formal papers will not be required before the conference. We envisage presentations of 15 minutes with plenty of time left for discussion of the papers and the key themes of the session.

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words to N.Longhurst@uea.ac.uk and iris.kunze@boku.ac.at by 31 August.

Further details of the conference can be found here: /?page_id=1135