Social Innovation and Alternatives to Development

FaculteitFaculty of Geosciences

NiveauMaster

Studiejaar2026-2027

Beschrijving

Course goals

Please note: the information in the course manual is binding.

After completion of the course, the student is able to:

Recognize, describe, contextualize and differentiate instances of social innovation and alternatives to development in and across global regions.
Recognize and describe different theories, concepts and frameworks that are relevant for examining social innovation and alternatives to development in and across different global regions.
Apply relevant theories, concepts and frameworks to characterize and critically reflect upon the transformative outcomes and potential of social innovation and alternatives to development, also from a comparative perspective.
Independently articulate arguments relating to the course’s content in written form.

Content

At the end of this course, the students will be able to recognize, analyse and critique transformative grassroots movements and social innovation initiatives: transformative movements that create new ways of doing, thinking and organizing with ambitions to spearhead radical sustainability transformations beyond modern industrial and capitalist development models. The students will learn about ongoing European and Latin American experiences that respond to capitalist organization of economies and ecologies, and in contrast promote a range of alternative socioeconomic imaginaries (e.g., green growth, buen vivir, degrowth, postgrowth, pluriverse), ontologies, institutional forms (e.g., cooperatives, social movements, prefigurative initiatives, intentional communities), forms of political action (e.g., prefiguration, resistance, protest), socio-material innovation across themes such as agri-food or extractivism, and alternatives modes of organizing (e.g., autonomy, deep democratic praxis, political coalitions, translocal networks). The course entails a combination of lectures, seminars, field visits, and engagement with a diverse range of European and Latin American theories including social innovation, social and socio-territorial mobilization, decoloniality, and post-development.

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