7.1.2. Comparing the case studies

Table 7.1 provides a summary of our cases in terms of the types of innovation they present, their normative stances, aspired goals and the envisaged roles for the poor: these differ across the cases and, at the same time, exhibit areas of overlap. Framings of innovation for development are constructed according to particular world views, but in the field, these become shaped in practice, with tangible impacts. In other words, the framings of innovation for development are motivated by a mix of social, environmental, cultural, commercial and political goals (e.g. empowerment, raising living standards, sustainability and co-production of profits), set within the context in which they find themselves.

As regards the innovation dimension, the cases present at least five typologies: product, service, process, positional and paradigm innovation (on this taxonomy, see Tidd and Bessant (2009)). Grameen Shakti presents examples of frugal product innovations (e.g. solar home system, biogas and improved cooking stoves) as well as service innovations (e.g. microcredit plans and rural-based technical services). In addition to product innovations (e.g. new fibers and new designs), the Mother Earth case exhibits process innovations (e.g. new processes for fiber manufacture). Moreover, the case presents an interesting example of positional innovation, i.e. new ways of positioning rural artisans within national and global markets. By reshaping designs and reconfiguring production processes, the company is able to reposition traditional products in completely different markets from those that rural artisans have been accustomed to. The IIMB case presents all of the innovation typologies described above: product innovations, such as new affordable construction materials (e.g. Wondergrass) and new electrical devices (e.g. Selco); service innovation, such as web platforms for rural artisans (e.g. GoCoop) and positional innovation, such as new positions on the market for rural handicrafts (e.g. Mithila and GoCoop). Product and process innovations are also found in the people’s technology initiatives (PTIs) promoted by the People’s Science Movement. At the same time, this case also presents interesting examples of social innovations, e.g. new forms of organizations to deliver social goods, such as literacy and scientific education (KSSP). All four cases can be considered as examples of paradigm innovation to varying degrees: either a market-based mental model to deliver development solutions that are co-produced with profit, as opposed to the more traditional state and donor-based approaches of the past, or new forms of autonomy and production based on networks of communities, local knowledge and appropriate technology (PSM), an approach itself in opposition to the mental model promoted by the market-based one.

With regard to the poor’s role in the innovation process, the cases differ substantially. In the case of Grameen Shakti, in line with the BOP literature, the poor are mainly presented as unserved customers. They provide feedback to the company, but they typically remain as clients or consumers of products (e.g. solar and biogas systems) and services (e.g. post-sale assistance). The Grameen technology centers provide an interesting variant of this model, in that they are designed to provide semi-qualified technical jobs to women, with the possibility for young women with technical degrees to be included in the activities of the company while remaining in rural settings: in this sense, there is some overlap with the role of the poor in the second case study (Mother Earth). The role of the poor in this case is one of producers, or rather co-producers, for the market and business co-venturers (Chataway and Kaplinsky 2014). The artisans are framed as skilled workers, and the role of the company, in contrast with the Grameen Shakti case, is not to sell them a product or a service but to connect them to new markets, by providing logistics, design competencies, expertise and market visibility/access. In the case of the IIMB, the poor are positioned as both consumers (Chataway et al. 2014, p. 42) and co-producers, again in a market-led paradigm. Finally, the PSM appears to frame the poor as empowered agents of change, through networks of self-organizing producers. They aim to empower “poor producers” through the promotion of scientific literacy, the upgrading of rural technology and grassroots innovation to enhance indigenous knowledge, culture and belief systems, anchored in a Leftist ideology with the purpose of social and political empowerment and emancipation.

The four cases also differ in their normative stances. For Grameen Shakti, energy is seen as being indispensable for development. They have a commitment to sustainable, green energy provision, providing both social and environmental benefits. The company also takes the stance that the state is unable to meet the energy requirements of the rural population and that this “institutional void” can be worked and overcome through a business mentality that combines profitability with the creation of social value within a model of social enterprise. This is also an underlying philosophy for Mother Earth. Mother Earth’s focus however (and indeed that of the People’s Science Movement) is not on appropriate products for poor consumers but on reconfiguring and enhancing the productive capacity of rural people, in Mother Earth’s case within a market frame. According to our Mother Earth interviewees, rural producers (e.g. artisans) are unable to compete in global markets because of their limited productivity and inability to adapt their products to the preferences of, for example, the new emerging Indian middle class. The underlying assumption is that, in order to preserve traditional skills and rural livelihoods and prevent urban migration, artisans should become productive and engage with national and global value chains. Similarly, the IIMB’s assumption is that the majority of Indians live in backward conditions because there is no culture of, or incentives for, innovation and no functioning innovation system. At the same time, poverty is usually seen as a delivery issue. Business models, and innovation within them, can and should be made more inclusive, leading to more equal distribution of social goods. Despite sharing with Mother Earth a focus on the productive capacity of the poor, the People’s Science Movement’s normative position deviates markedly from not only Mother Earth but also all the other cases. For them, the majority of Indians are seen as being excluded from the benefits of the development project because of oppressive social structures that hamper the equal distribution of social goods. They argue that markets cannot be inclusive and industrial development is an exploitative enterprise that they contend jeopardizes social and environmental integrity. They aim to use science and grassroots innovation to empower the Indian poor as communities of independent producers, augmenting their traditional belief systems and intrinsic rationality. Inspired by what Levidow and Papaioannou (2017) describe as a “social-collective” mind-set, this may be viewed as more of a “mobilization” mode of encounter of grassroots innovation with the mainstream, with “resistance of grassroots to incumbent regimes, with the aim of developing pathways towards alternative innovation systems” (Fressoli et al. 2014).

These narratives are constructed around key concepts and buzzwords, or more precisely around constellations of buzzwords (Cornwall 2007) (see Table 7.2).

It is in these constellations of buzzwords that the notion of innovation for development can assume very different practical implications and outcomes, depending on which relative position, or which world view, it occupies. In these different, sometimes overlapping constellations, innovation is functional to other normative concepts. Grameen Shakti’s focus is on innovative, often stand-alone technical solutions to alleviate poverty in rural Bangladesh by providing green energy, which can empower users. At the same time, their GTCs provide dignified employment in rural settings to semi-skilled female workers. In this case, the word “innovation” is embedded in a constellation of buzzwords that includes “sustainable energy solutions”, “micro-financing” and “self-empowerment”. In the Mother Earth case, innovation is aimed at connecting artisans to markets, as well as reconfiguring and increasing productivity (in turn re-arranging space and time) for market-readiness, efficiency, empowerment of women, self-help and commitment to “educating” the poor above notions such as ownership and responsibility. In the case of IIMB, innovation is focused on individual entrepreneurs, companies and social enterprises able to address issues at the Bottom of the Pyramid by developing innovative technologies and business models that are inclusive and financially viable at the same time. In the IIMB case, innovation is associated with buzzwords such as financial sustainability, inclusive business, inclusive growth and social enterprise. PSM, in contrast, aims to restructure the power structures that govern production in rural India. In the PSM case, innovation is aimed at social transformation, enhancing the intrinsic rationality of the rural population, reconfiguring production around networks of communities using appropriate, often grassroots technologies, and promoting social justice, autonomy and self-sufficiency.

It is interesting that in all of the cases, technology development and innovation, tempered by the principle of inclusion, is positioned as an indispensable element of development solutions for the rural poor. In three of the cases (Grameen Shakti, Mother Earth, IIMB), despite discursive hybridization, a strong connection to the markets framing emerges, which shares many characteristics with an overwhelmingly neoliberal agenda, e.g. a focus on entrepreneurs as a definition of successful individuals, on consumption or value creation through engagement with domestic and international markets, on the rationality of self-interested, economic agents and on the rationalization of production within a monetized economy (Gershon 2011). In this frame, the place of local, indigenous knowledge is at best uncertain. As Corinne Kumar, the founder of the feminist association Vimochana based in Bangalore, told us, this market-led, neoliberal agenda for development has, for example, dismissed and negated that special kind of women’s knowledge, wisdom and ways to survive that are present in every traditional society, reframing their role instead as producers or consumers. The PSM case, in contrast, presents an example of a countervailing framing for inclusive innovation that opposes this “market-ready” framing, which they consider as, paradoxically, increasing the vulnerability of the poor, exposing them to the volatility of a free market economy and creating new forms of social oppression and dependency (Federici 2001; Federici 2010). Their framing transcends product, process and positional innovations to present a case of paradigm innovation that aims to change the market-based mental model as a form of critical, second-order reflexivity. Within this frame, the term “inclusive innovation” acquires a very different meaning from its framing in the other three cases. Here, the goal is to work with local knowledge and to redistribute power, where science, technology and innovation are a means to reshape and transform pre-existing social and political structures.

7.2.1. Self-help

In considering the buzzwords that serve as discursive bridges between the worlds of innovation and development, we highlight “self-help” and “inclusion” as being particularly relevant. The first of these that we will discuss is the notion of self-help. As discussed in Chapter 3, the self-help group model originated in rural Bangladesh from the pioneering work of the Grameen Bank. Their model is now highly popular among development practitioners in countries such as India, which, for example, has already modified its political agenda to include the philosophy of self-help within its legislation. As Nelaam, the founder of Mother Earth, told us, the Indian government aspires to turn every rural dweller away from being an SHG member. As with most of the buzzwords, the SHG notion conveys principles that seem difficult to argue against when considered in their abstract formulation: female empowerment, cooperation, raising incomes and self-organization. Both the cases of Grameen Shakti and Mother Earth are explicitly constructed around the notion of the SHG. Despite its centralist and top-down governance, Grameen Shakti promotes the creation of SHGs among its clients and organizes its activities in the field following the model tested and deployed by Grameen Bank. The Grameen technology centers managed by rural female engineers are emblematic examples. Within Mother Earth, the SHG discourse also occupies a central place. The company aims to preserve rural crafts through the creation of productive and competitive units modeled on the SHG. Despite their differences, in both cases, the notion of the SHG leverages concepts such as autonomy, individual and collective responsibility and economic independence.

The SHG concept acquires concrete political meaning when observed in practice. In the field, we observed the SHG to exhibit distinctly neoliberal characteristics, e.g. a focus on value creation in the context of domestic and international markets and value chains, often underpinned by micro-financing initiatives and the formalization and rationalization of production. Although the SHG model encourages collaboration within groups, surprisingly enough, examples of success are often presented in terms of heroic personalities, such as Neelam of Mother Earth and Prof. Yunus and the smart women who populate his books. Notions of participation and cooperativism can become absorbed by the logic of competing independent units of production within idealistic free and competing markets. This, we suggest, has significant implications for rural life, which it seeks to transform, e.g. the re-organizing of space, time and work to enhance production and the role of women in rural societies. It is extremely important to state now that we make no value judgments concerning the quality of life of women before or after their SHG experiences. Indeed, we are acutely aware of the difficult conditions facing women in strongly patriarchal societies in rural parts of the Global South. We simply observe that SHGs at face value can neglect the fact that production is always embedded in wider cultural and social contexts.

In fact, the notion of self-help that we observed is often strongly motivated by social, environmental and political goals, e.g. empowerment, raising living standards and sustainability. However, it also serves the purpose of the establishment of a market society in which the distribution of social goods is mediated, in the overwhelming majority of cases, by monetary relationships and transactions¹. Scott (1995) suggested that the neoliberal turn in the development agenda of many international institutions and governments of developing countries imposed the need to create a pool of productive individuals ready for the market. This governmentality approach, to use Foucault’s term, is designed to construct rational economic women and men who function efficiently in the context of the market, and in doing so empower themselves and improve their standard of living. Within this scope, the SHG appropriates the feminist language of female participation and empowerment to align individual personal goals with those of economic, market-based reforms.

7.2.2. Inclusion

“Inclusion” is, we suggest, perhaps the most important buzzword that bridges innovation and development (see also Heeks et al. 2014), featuring prominently in all our case studies and being a significant keyword in our earlier review of the literature (see Chapter 2). It is an essential buzzword within the Grameen Shakti, Mother Earth and IIMB cases. The examples of social enterprises and inclusive business models described in these cases aim to include the poor in a significant way, and the role of innovation is to provide entry points and solutions for those who currently remain excluded. The narrative of inclusive business models at the IIMB, for example, automatically constructs two arguments: one is that of business-as-usual, where goods and services are produced by empowered individuals in an economic and efficient way, and the other is that this logic is somehow flawed: it is insufficiently inclusive and needs to be fixed. This distinction, in turn, implies the need to create a community of people who participate in “normal”, market-based economic activity (as consumers, as producers), a community which is currently excluded. In this frame, exclusion is a problem that is amenable to an innovative technical fix as a delivery issue rather than a social or political issue: a problem of management and delivery of financially viable, innovative solutions to the BOP. As White (1996, p. 6) argues, however, “sharing through participation – or co-production of goods and services – does not necessarily mean sharing in power”. And, indeed, the PSM argue that market-led development and the ideology of the technical fix not only neglect fundamental issues of power, but may also reify and increase inequality and exclusion rather than ameliorating them. They can increase the vulnerability of “poor producers”, exposing them to the volatility of a free market economy and creating new forms of dependency: structural dependency has given way to a new form of market dependency in which the idea of inclusive innovation plays an important role.

The focus on inclusion within the market paradigm also risks marginalizing or even silencing alternative solutions that fall outside the logic of the market. For example, in an interview we conducted with Prof. Anil Gupta, founder of the Honey Bee foundation in Gujarat, he wondered why the Indian press, academics and politicians were so enthusiastic about the research programs on connectivity for the illiterate carried out by IBM and Microsoft yet ignored the fact that in Gujarat alone, his organization has discovered more than a hundred educational innovations to speed up literacy, determinedly carried out by rural teachers without any governmental support. As in the case of literacy campaigns conducted in Kerala by the KSSP, those initiatives are based on local knowledge and local social networks that escape a market logic.

Overall, what emerges in our cases is that inclusion carries with it politics and normative aspects that need to be disclosed and critically interrogated: this discursive bridge between innovation and development is a political one.

7.2.3. Some important limitations

It goes without saying that the case studies in Part 2 of this book only cover a fraction of the innovation and development narratives that exist in the Global South, and we can think of many more that would be interesting and insightful cases, for example, the famous Honey Bee network in India. More studies are clearly needed to understand how the discourses of development and innovation are hybridizing and evolving in specific cultural and geographical contexts. We recommend this.

The primary focus of this book is to analyze the innovation and development narratives constructed by those who claim to speak in the name of the poor, for the poor and their “development”: this has become the object of an increasing number of actors ranging from international donors and development scholars, to local governments and NGOs and, more recently, business and management scholars. Surprisingly enough, despite being the center of controversial political and academic debates, the so-called poor are rarely allowed to speak for themselves without intermediation: this book is alas no exception. A limitation of the work presented in this book has been the impossibility of carrying out longer ethnographic work, learning local languages and deeply engaging with local habits and culture. With regard to future research, our intention is to overcome these limits not only by engaging in longer fieldwork activities, but also by inviting members of the communities observed to review our reflections, provide feedback and even co-author research reports and publications. This approach is increasingly popular in the gray literature about grassroots movements. Studies on the notion of Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay (Acosta 2010; Dinerstein 2014; Lang 2012; Thomson 2011; Walsh 2010), the wave of post-colonial feminism across the Global South (Federici 2001; Kumar 2013) and the study of social movements in Latin America (Escobar 2010), just to mention a few, seem to point in this direction.

Furthermore, by limiting the scope to the study of the practitioners’ discourses, our cases have little to say about the effectiveness of the initiatives we have observed. What is the real impact of Grameen Shakti’s activities in rural Bangladesh? Has their introduction of solar panels and biogas systems raised child literacy and contributed to the sustainability of their natural environment? What is the impact of Mother Earth’s activity on rural incomes and welfare, identity and the well-being of rural artisans engaged in the self-help groups? What is the impact of the inclusive business models promoted by the IIMB? And what is the impact of the people’s technological initiatives supported by the People’s Science Movement? Despite the anecdotal evidence provided in some of the cases, the measurability and significance of the impacts of innovation within those cases remain unclear. Reflecting on these questions, we resist the temptation to deliver a set of guidelines or thoughts on good (or best) innovation practices in the context of development and poverty alleviation. Our intention is rather to disclose and provide some insights into the contested, plural and hybrid nature of innovation for development and its often unexplored and tacit normative and political dimensions. The reader might like to note some quite sophisticated ways of comparing and appraising innovation discourses and their outcomes have been provided by the post-normal science tradition (Escobar 1984; Frame and Brown 2008; Funtowicz and Ravetz 1994) and, more recently, by the STEPS group at the University of Sussex (Demeritt et al. 2011; Stirling 2008; Stirling et al. 2007).