From Appropriate to Social technologies: some enduring dilemmas in grassroots innovation movements for socially just futures

MARIANO FRESSOLI; ADRIAN SMITH; HERNÁN THOMAS

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; 9th Globelics International Conference; 2011

UNSAM/UNQ/UNGS

Grassroots innovation movements history show the potentialities and benefits that grassroots movements can bring into innovation and knowledge production such as tinkering with and questioning existing technologies and practices, positing new problems to scientific and technological communities and establishing new priorities for development. Our purpose in this paper is to explore the ways these counter-movements can be conceived as important experiences of technological forecasting and social change. We analyse these issues by comparing the experiences of two historic and one contemporary movement for grassroots innovation: the Appropriate Technology movement for developing countries; the Alternative Technology movement in some developed countries; and the Social Technologies movement in South America. We argue that attempts at grassroots innovation movements should be taken seriously in technological forecasting and social change. Considering them as potentially rich sites for social learning, we suggest, might not overcome the dilemmas confronting alternative innovation, but could nevertheless help make them more widely relevant and deserving of social and policy support.