— Political analysis has shown that, in the process of creating laws, standards and institutions, socio-political change is conditioned by mechanisms for knowledge transfer and cooperation at several levels, local and international.
Social innovation is not just about humanitarian action. It’s about how we create a new society, whether on a local or international scale. It may sound like utopia, but it’s a necessity, particularly in the face of the effects of uncontrollable climate change, extreme temperatures and the inability to move away from a productivism policies model ill-suited to the vision of a sustainable society.
Indeed, the central question is to what extent social innovation can tackle the major problems of our world, such as uncontrolled immigration, political instability, climate change and so on ?
It seems to me, in the case of development policies, to draw inspiration from methods of managing common resources on a “local” rather than “national” level. The latter reduces the level of action to the instruments of state governance. The nation-state, through its laws and implementation mechanisms, fails to satisfy the needs of the majority of its citizens. The need to obtain drinking water, for example, is not compatible with the need to satisfy the needs of large hotel complexes to fill their swimming pools or water their golf courses for a minority of customers, who are often wealthy foreigners.
The management of resources necessary for survival should be based on local models inspired by our humanity’s heritage of knowledge, and the choice to experiment with these models should be a democratic choice, at local level. This does not exclude the possibility of applying national strategies to finance major projects such as the construction of infrastructure linking different urban areas or the creation of large water recycling centers, as development policy impact studies have shown. The effectiveness of decisions is greatly reduced if local populations are not consulted, and if the social and economic model implemented is not adapted to this society.
Social design inspired from the management of natural resources, is often seen as a means of experimenting with alternative models of development, but not as instrument of real changement on national level. These models can only remain local and in the minority in relation to the global capitalist model of consumption that has dominated our society from industrialization to the present day. As a result, these alternative models are not taken into consideration. This is a huge loss, blocking any possibility of change.
Safouane Azzouzi, (research professor in design at the University of Rome), was able to work on an original social and economic model: the community use of water in the oases of Gabès*. Water is used in such a way that each inhabitant has the right to use the right quantity he or she needs to cultivate their soil, with no material compensation. The obligation was that this use of water should be rationalized by a collectively chosen system.
Gabès is a city in crisis of water sources due to industrialization and urbanization according to a modernist model inherited from colonization and the era of Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba after the country’s independence in 1956. It also has one of the highest rates of internal and external immigration, linked to water scarcity and shrinking farmland, among other factors.
In his study, Azzouzi interviewed local residents, anthropologists, economists and water-use specialists to explain how Gabesian society lived in harmony thanks to its water-sharing culture. The city’s rites and traditions were linked to this social model of water sharing, which became part of an institutionalized model at the time called “the common”. المشاع. The aim of this research is to understand the collective dynamics that enabled the consolidation of a cohesive, committed and supportive society. The town’s ethnic differences, between Arab migrants from the Middle East, the Amazighs and sub-Saharan Africans from the slave trade dating back to the 11th century, have not affected this solidarity.
The bonds of water sharing and the desire for a peaceful, harmonious society have enabled the construction of a relational structure which, through rituals, traditions and social relations, gives meaning to community life and creates society.
This model of the “common” could be inspired by ancient methods that have been tried and tested for centuries. We need to move on from an individualistic society, a model that has shown its shortcomings and negative effects, to a social model based on solidarity in the use of natural resources.
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Yassine Hattay. Published on 27 July 2023
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Yassine Hattay