Call for action to create focus and momentum for collaboration on change towards more sustainable, just and resilient societies.
In the TRANSIT project, we have set out to develop a theory on ‘Transformative Social Innovation’. This is a process of changes in social relations, involving the challenging, altering and/or replacing of dominant institutions and structures.
At the end of this journey, we proudly present the online website of the Manifesto for Transformative Social Innovation: www.tsimanifesto.org
The website includes a PDF of the “Manifesto for Transformative Social Innovation Version 0.1. We call it a “version 0.1” because it is to be a document in the making that aims to start discussion and deliberation, where we invite people to endorse and/or adapt the manifesto according to their own local contexts and ideas.
ESSRG took part in creating a database that features timelines and Critical Turning Points in 20 social innovation networks TRANSIT analysed. The database brings together insights from more than 80 social innovation initiatives.
One example is the seed exchange network study that looks into social innovation potentials of continental and national level seed organisations. These networks consciously aim at changing social relations linked to agriculture by preserving, recreating, and relearning knowledge about seeds and diversity, creating new practices and ways of organizing social networks regarding seed exchange, and framing them as a different way of thinking about agricultural systems.
ESSRG looked at a few intersecting regional hubs of activity: the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) in North America; the Seed Saver Foundation (SSF) established in Australia; the Let’s Liberate Diversity (LLD) network (and a related but separate international networking effort coordinated by Arche Noah of Austria) within Europe; and Navdanya, led by the prominent Dr. Vandana Shiva, in India; as well as a few examples from Latin America and Africa, where seed-saving and exchange is a key part of work done by agroecology and organic movements.
Social Innovation Initiatives in the Critical Turning Points-database: