Three Tales in Journeys Towards Wisdom: Decolonial Impetuses in Social Innovation

Abstract

Most Social Innovations (and related fields and practices such as Social Entrepreneurship, Social Finance and Systemic Design) address symptoms instead of the root causes of the most wicked problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973) we face as humanity. Global North paradigms (in particular, epistemologies) often focus on the gathering of data, organising it into information, and synthesising it into knowledge that can be consumed, and thus commodified. In contrast, Indigenous and Traditional frameworks almost always go a step further, and sometimes in altogether other directions, towards the attainment of ‘Wisdom’ as their ultimate goal. Resultantly, the most progressive Global North pedagogies and praxis focus on bridging the knowing-doing gap (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000) centering ideas such as learning cycles (Kolb, 1984) and organizations (Senge, 1990), rarely paying heed to what Indigenous and Traditional frameworks present at their very core: embodiment; being and (when extended to the metaphysical) entanglement; inter-becoming (Bhogal, 2012; Wight, 2013). An altogether knowing otherwise rooted in wisdom…

A (re)focus on these Global South frameworks may provide the field of Social Innovation with the decolonial impetus required to move us towards a paradigm of relationality (Goodchild, 2021) and regeneration (Senge, 2008; Wahl, 2008, 2016) that can potentially aid our species in avoiding (& continuing to create) the catastrophic climate (and related) calamities (UN IPCC, 2018) confronting us on the horizon.

Sensing into the provisional elements of wisdom frameworks from the Global South, this dissertation shares three tales of journeys towards decoloniality in social innovation. Spanning two sites between North America and South Asia, chapters 3-5 share examples of “upside-down” approaches to social innovation and its allied fields (social finance, systemic design, learning and evaluation, and systems change).

Using these tales, this dissertation recognizes our desire as researchers and practitioners of social innovation to enact shifts in systems and ignite transformations towards regenerative futures in these times of polycrises/polycollapse. In this process, these stories emphasize the need for a different sensing: more embodied ways of knowing, more pluralistic ways of doing, and increasingly relational ways of being. It is perhaps in these explorations that we may be able to tap into the wisdom of our inter-becoming.