Description:
This paper is a reflection on broadening understandings of innovation, using preliminary
data on individual and collective repertoires of resilient practices in the context of multiple
crises across Côte d’Ivoire. It explores how conceptual linkages between resilience thinking
and social innovation (SI) can shift from innovative solutions to innovative ways of
understanding problems to achieve transformative change. It argues that current
conceptualisations of innovation are constrained within dominant technological and
Western-centric paradigms that exclude vernacular innovation practices. Drawing from the
relational dynamics between multiple crises in Côte d’Ivoire and vernacular responses
thereto, it is observed that resilient practices harnessed through the complexity of social
problems constitute innovative solutions that are perpetuated across time, scales and
space. It, therefore, argues that pairing resilience and innovation uncovers how SI can be both transformative and continuous.