This paper contributes to public and academic discussions on empowerment and social innovation by conceptualizing the mechanisms of empowerment from a social psychology perspective, and empirically exploring how people are empowered through both local and transnational linkages, i.e. translocal networks. Section 2 conceptualizes empowerment as the process through which actors gain the capacity to mobilize resources to achieve a goal, building on different power theories in relation to social change, combined with self-determination theory and intrinsic motivation research. Based on that conceptualization, empirical questions are formulated to be asked about cases under study. Section 3 then provides an empirical analysis of translocal networks that work with social innovation both at the global and local level. A total of five networks are analyzed: FEBEA, DESIS, the Global Ecovillage Network, Impact Hub and Slow Food. The embedded cases-study approach allows an exploration of how people are empowered through the transnational networking while also zooming in on the dynamics in local initiatives. In the final section, conceptual and empirical insights are synthesized into a characterization of the mechanisms of translocal empowerment, and challenges for future research are formulated.

Recent research projects have looked for social innovations, i.e., people creating solutions outside the mainstream patterns of production and consumption. An analysis of these innovations indicates the emergence of a particular kind of service configuration-defined here as relational serviceswhich requires intensive interpersonal relations to operate. Based on a comparative analysis between standard and relational services, we propose to the Service Design discipline an interpretative framework able to reinforce its ability to deal with the interpersonal relational qualities in services, indicating how these qualities can be understood and favored by design activities, as well as the limits of this design intervention. Martin

In recent decades neoliberalism has become a powerful narrative that has shaped processes of urban economic development across the globe. Any future attempts to steer urban transitions will need to engage with and potentially challenge this dominant approach. This paper reports on four nascent 'new economic' logics which represent fundamentally different imaginaries of the urban economy. In each case, the underlying narrative informs already existing urban experiments in transformative social innovation, leading to the production of new patterns of (economic) relation and practice. Each of these experiments offers a counterpoint to conventional understandings of the neoliberal urban economy across four key dimensions: What is the purpose of economic development? What are the preferred distributive mechanisms? Who governs the economy? What

No abstract

T he world is filled with pressing social challenges that cry out for solution. On one side are issues related to natural resources, such as global climate change and adequate food supplies. On the other are problems with service systems, exemplified by issues with the cost and quality of healthcare as well as difficulties with transportation and improvements in education. Studying the social innovation phenomena through the point of view of design, the DESIS Group at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University ⁄ COPPE explores the role of design strategy to promote and support sustainable change in Brazil-socially, economically, environmentally, and institutionally.This article presents and analyzes four projects developed in Brazil under such an approach, and discusses the theoretical framework supporting these projects.Design for social innovation and the DESIS network