Diverse economies perspective reveals hegemonic economic discourse is vulnerable-the alternative produces socially useful innovation

(Sine and Sara, Com@Roskilde, What Does It Take? Feminist Readings of Innovation Studies In Debating Innovation: Perspectives and Paradoxes of an Idealized Concept ed. Rehn and Ortenblad)

“Why can feminists have revolution now, while Marxists have to wait?” writer collective Gibson-Graham (1993, p. 10) asks. The answer, they suggest, is that while the Marxist revolution demands full replacement of the capitalist system with that of socialism, feminist revolution is incremental, counting every advance towards gender equality as a victory. From this perspective, change can happen from within an existing sys tem—indeed, is already happening if one cares to look. This is not to say that the dominant order is about to come tumbling down, but rather that one cannot change the system by means of critique alone. Instead, Gibson-Graham (1996, p. 543) proposes a dual strategy of depicting “…economic discourse as hegemonized while rendering the social world as economically differentiated and complex.” Thus, transformative potential is anchored in the presentation of already existent diverse economies as alternatives to economic hegemony. In claiming the transformative potential of existing alternatives, Gibson-Graham is inspired by Butler’s post-structuralist feminism, gen erally, and her theory of performativity, more specifically. The concept of performativity denotes the process by which dominant social norms are both upheld through the repetition of such norms, which is necessary for the individual subject’s achievement of social recognition, and become subject to change, as the very demand for repetition introduces the possibility of deviation (Allen 1998; Butler 1990, 2004). This focus on norms of recognition leads to an understanding of gender as the result of performative processes rather than the underlying cause of particular actions. As Butler (1990, p. 25) famously puts it: “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.” Gender is not an explanation of anything (for instance, of a particular perspective on innovation), but is, instead, the result of the repeated enactment of gendered norms (producing, for instance, the subject position of “the female entrepreneur”). Meaning, we should not assume that an individual possesses particular personality traits or professional abilities because of their gender, but study gendered norms and subjectivities as the results of social processes. Beginning from this “reversed causality,” Gibson-Graham (2006b, p. 75) extrapolates three key points from their encounter with post-structuralist feminism: “…a new language, new practices of resubjectiva tion, and a new kind of dispersed collective action that [does] not depend upon the organized revolutionary agendas of more established radical politics.” When applied to the broader context of diverse economies, the latter point implies that alternatives worth exploring are not delimited beforehand. Rather, we might find potential for broader societal transfor mation in any of the many specific ways in which the currently dominant order of the market economy is resisted, negotiated, and/or reformed (Gibson-Graham 2006a, p. xiii). In searching for alternatives, Gibson-Graham links diverse economies specifically to social innovation. Focusing on the change that emanates from and is operative at the level of local communities, they do not define a community economy “…by geographic or social commonality; it is an ethical and political space of decision making in which interdependence is constructed as people transform their livelihoods and lives” (Gibson-Graham and Roelvink 2009, p. 25). Here, social innovation—or the pro cess of “making other worlds possible”—is subject to three general principles: visible diversity, distributive justice, and self-determination (Gibson-Graham and Roelvink 2009). These three principles, we believe, may drive innovation in both the economic and the social sphere and, more importantly, bridge the two to produce economics innovations that are also socially beneficial. Returning to the question of gender, this vision of innovation is not anchored in a specific gender identity; to the contrary, it aims at opening up spaces for the expression of diverse (gen der) identities and producing greater (gender) equality.