Social Innovation in Latin America

Maintaining and Restoring Social and Natural Capital

Sara Calvo, Andrés Morales, Sara Calvo, Andrés Morales

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000357097
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The Latin American continent contains an incredibly rich diversity from which humans derive a range of ecosystem services (e.g. material goods, cultural benefits, climate regulation, etc.) that contribute to livelihoods and well-being. It has become critical to reconcile social and environmental issues in the region to ensure that development is sustainable and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

To ensure the sustainable use and management of social and natural capital in the region, business, government, social enterprises and NGOs are engaging in different forms of social innovation that account for social, ecological and environmental values. This requires the integration of social and natural capital into decision-making at all levels. Latin America presents a useful scenario to explore social innovation in relation to social and environmental values and the management of local human and natural resources. This book presents social innovation initiatives that incorporate social and natural capital into decision-making processes in Latin America. This book aims to provide the reader with an insight into the relevance of social innovation for maintaining and restoring social and natural capital in Latin America.

Using case studies from Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Mexico, this book provides an insight into the interactions between social innovation and social and natural capital in Latin America and will be of interest to researchers, academics and students in the fields of social innovation, management studies, environmental economics and sustainability.

Part I

Conceptual frameworks to understand social innovation and natural and social capital in Latin America

1 Buen Vivir, a decolonial approach to development

Morales Andrés and Calvo Sara

Introduction

This chapter presents the Buen Vivir (BV) as a decolonial approach to development (Tödtling, 2010; Lowe et al., 1995; Vázquez-Barquero, 2003; Clarke, 2001; Laurie et al., 2005; N’Kaschama, 2012; Zuñiga, 1995; AIPPF, 2012; Giovannini, 2012; Tauli-Corpuz, 1996). BV emerges as a consequence of the failures of development and is built upon the objective to identify ‘alternatives to development’, rather than ‘development alternatives’, as a concrete possibility through ecological and cultural transitions (Escobar, 2015; Acosta, 2013; Gudynas, 2011). Then, the emergence and rationale of BV are explained, where the authors elaborate on the BV reasoning by employing the work of Cubillo-Guevara et al. (2014) and Hidalgo-Capitán and Cubillo-Guevara (2015, 2016), who identified the three traditions that influence the present concept of BV: (i) the indigenist approach, (ii) the socialist/statist approach and (iii) the ecologist/developmentalist approach.

Moreover, the authors identify the BV values and pillars based on an extensive and in-depth review of more than 300 bibliographical references of the BV’s literature. Although there is no explicit evidence of the existence of values and pillars in the current literature, the authors identified them by cross-analysing the main intellectual referents of the BV thinking, mostly based on the work of Cubillo-Guevara et al. (2014), Hidalgo-Capitán and Cubillo-Guevara (2015, 2017) and Vanhulst (2015). Out of this analysis, three values, namely, (i) community, (ii) solidarity and reciprocity and (iii) harmony and complementarity, and six pillars, namely, (i) rights of nature, (ii) community well-being, (iii) decolonisation, (iv) plurinational state, (v) economic pluralism and (vi) democratisation, were identified. Examples of Ecuador and Bolivia are invoked throughout the chapter to depict the advancements in the BV implementation. Later, the chapter discusses the main BV criticisms (Bretón, 2013; Caria & Domínguez, 2016; Correa, 2007, 2008; Esteva, 1992; Lalander, 2016; Stefanoni, 2010, 2011). Finally, a concluded BV’s model is suggested based on the identified values and pillars to understand natural and social capital in Latin America.

The tales of ‘development’: the failure of its implementations

Development is a concept that is still under discussion and subjected to the myriad and manifold definitions of it. As Cowen and Shenton (1996) suggested, development can be categorised as immanent development (the spontaneous development as in the historical trajectory of capitalism) and intentional development (attempts to improve material conditions in response to the consequences of immanent development, for example, poverty and unemployment) (ibid: viii-xiv). Their argument is constructed under the basis of its classical origin, by which development was understood as a natural process in which phases of renewal, expansion, contraction and decomposition followed each other sequentially according to a perpetually recurrent cycle (ibid: viii). With this in hand, development in the context of the ‘developing’ or ‘least developed’ world represents the dichotomy suggested by these scholars, the implementation of development’s recipes (intentional development) to encounter the negative outcomes of the natural cycle of capitalism (immanent development) to generates a sort of endless perverse development cycle.

According to Fukuyama (2001), development is strongly associated with economic development based on the increasing GDP per capita and is built upon different dimensions: i) Economic Growth, ii) Social Mobilisation (expressed in two forms Civil Society that represents the whole society and Political Parties that represent parts of the society) and iii) Political Development shaped by the State, Rule of Law and Democracy. His argument is elaborated based on the claim that economic growth nurtures social mobilisation as it creates change in society and that change generates different forms of social organisation that lead to the eventual political development. The point that Fukuyama makes is crucial for the later elaboration of BV. He argued that economic development is in essence the orthodox objective that most of the work in development is based on to reach the living standards and decrease societal needs (Friedman, 2000; Fukuyama, 2001; Rostow, 1952, 1960; Schumpeter, 1961; Warren, 1980). Although later works on development suggest that development cannot be only measured or led by economic growth, thus human development is subjected to other forms that may enable the improvement of societal living standards (Sen, 2000, 2001; Sen & Anand, 2000), the economy of the society is still an important feature to determine the development of humans to reach the individual/societal well-being. In spite the fact that orthodox development approaches move away from only economy-based recipes towards a more humane and sustainably oriented methodologies, the enhancement of the human well-being is directed and guided by a development agenda to readdress the failures of the immanent development cycles¹ (based on economy-based development theories influenced strongly by economic factors but with a sustainable ingredient, see more in Hettne, 1983). As can be seen, development is claimed to be a key determinant for societal progress manifested in the enhancement of living standards and therefore is a mechanism generator of human well-being. Development in both dimensions, theoretically as an assumption and empirically as an implemented framework, has been a subject of debates and studies.

Latin America (LA) scholars from the Modernity Coloniality Group (MCG) located in the Global South² (GS) claim that development is the legacy of colonialism and is considered the landmark to bring about the conditions necessary to replicate other worlds (or the ‘civilised’ world) over the features that characterised the ‘advanced’ societies (mainly from the Global North), high levels of industrialisation and urbanisation, industrialisation of agriculture, rapid growth of material production and living standards, media communication, technology and the widespread adoption of modern education and cultural values (Acosta, 2012, 2013; Albó, 2009; Escobar, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2012; Gudynas, 2011; Huanacuni, 2010; Lander, 2000; Mignolo, 2001, 2010, 2014a; Quijano, 2000, 2011). The MCG group of scholars evokes ‘epistemic disobedience’, analysing historical processes in the region and agreed that to create another paradigm it is necessary to create a new epistemological system built on ancestral/cultural ontologies (Walsh, 2012). They argue, in particular, for the need to be moving away from a hegemonic Eurocentric ‘universe’ (unique thinking) towards what they call a ‘pluriverse’ world (acknowledging others’ views to observe the planet). From this perspective, BV appears as a theoretical challenge to create another system of philosophical and ethical principles inspired by LA ancestral ontologies (Dussel, 2011; Mignolo, 2000).

It is claimed to be a western invention, indoctrinated and institutionally imposed during colonisation, and it can be seen as a conceptual regime of sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which colonised actors’ expectations converge in a given (mostly coercively) idea of how society should be and live (Acosta, 2012, 2013; Escobar, 2012; Mignolo, 2014a; Quijano, 2000​​​​). Development is as Acosta (2013: 68) puts it ‘the lighthouse to warn, mark or guide society to reach the ideal world, avoiding dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals or reefs of the ‘uncivilised’ world. Development is a modern concept imported during colonialism, subordinating the colonised regions’. Similarly, but less symbolically, Escobar (2012) proposes to speak of development as a historical and singular experience, the creation of a domain of thought and action, constituted by: i) the forms of knowledge that refer to it (theories), ii) the system of power that regulates its practice (institutions) and iii) the symbolic archetype-generator mechanism (developed versus underdeveloped/developing).

As observed, in the current LA context, development is critically approached and heavily assessed and scrutinised by the regional scholars, practitioners, advocators and intellectuals in a post-development³ scenario as a result of the development’s failure on its implementation (Acosta, 2013). Some criticise development from an institutional point of view, in which a system of classification was created to legitimise western hegemony and reinforce hierarchical differences worldwide forged since colonialisation (international institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organisation). The fact that international development indicators are established to classify countries as ‘developed’, ‘developing’ and ‘least developing’ determined by a variety of factors (i.e. life expectancy, education level, GDP per capita and so on) demonstrates that a global hierarchy determinant is designed institutionally to marginalise one country to another and demonise those who are not meeting supposedly ‘development’ living standards for human well-being (Acosta, 2012; Escobar, 2012; Gudynas, 2011). Others condemn development from an epistemic perspective and are calling for an epistemic disobedience, as they claim that there are other forms of colonisation (i.e. knowledge) and the ‘ex-colonies’ still are slaved and dominated by the coloni...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I: Conceptual frameworks to understand social innovation and natural and social capital in Latin America
• Part II: Social innovation and natural capital
• Part III: Social innovation and human capital
• Index