Transformative social innovations in mountain territories

To be sure, mountain regions innovate, but are their forms of innovation necessarily singular? Do they participate in bringing about a profound transformation to the territorial paths and positions taken?

This session will attempt to answer these questions by focusing on social innovation, i.e. collective initiatives taken by citizens in response to social needs which are not otherwise fully satisfied by the market or political organisations (Klein and Harisson, 2007), and on its potential to transform mountain territories.

Lots of social innovation players subscribe to a vision of societal transition (Avelino et al., 2014; Pruvost, 2013). Others rely more on creativeness and culture, which infers setting up creative groups or classes in rural suburbs (Bourdeau and Lebreton, 2013). Beyond individual initiatives and their effects, many approaches experiment with collective forms and methods of change, which give social innovation projects a genuinely territorial component. The territories concerned thus become experimental laboratories that come to represent an alternative, and engender a new form of attractiveness (Koop and Senil, 2016).

In this session, we will examine:

• The forms of social innovation in mountain regions in terms of their spatial aspects: Are these social innovations spatially limited, where they take the form of a place "with a difference" or an oasis disconnected from the territory? Do they operate as networks (Nicholls et al., 2013)? Can processes based on territorialisation and on the emergence of socially and culturally innovative circles be observed (Longhurst, 2015)? What is the territorial anchoring of new symbolic and imaginary values, and of new lifestyles?
• Social initiatives specific to mountain regions: This topic calls for comparisons to question the specificities of the mountain regions concerned. These comparisons may equally be based on the status (metropolitan outskirts), the types of economy (rural, tourism), or the environment's specificities (exposure to risks, slopes, climatic limitations). If certain types of mountain regions come across as being attractive and particularly conducive to social innovation, how do these particularities in turn promote the emergence of specific forms of social innovation? (mobilisation of local know-how, local resources?)
• The socio-cultural transformations inferred: While we can observe numerous projects initiated by "local" players, certain mountain regions also attract "external" players, often urban, who choose these regions to set up their projects and explore their personal ideals, since they consider them as places with "possibilities". However, these projects and visions are not always shared by the region's "elders". From fragmentation to collective dynamics, how do these socio-cultural transformations of the territories tie in with one another? What is their convening power? Do they help to reduce marginality and exclusion? Do they lead to conflicts?
• The governance of socially innovative territories: Local populations are not the only ones confronted with changes within their territory; so are territorial authorities. How do public stakeholders react to this new set of dynamics? Do they satisfy the expectations of those who instigate these changes? Which conflictual situations and what kinds of cooperations can be observed? Do any new forms of territorial governance emerge (Klein, 2009)? How can we refer to them (participatory governance, transition governance)?