摘要：In several Alpine countries, the response to vulnerable groups’ social needs has traditionally been the responsibility of government organizations. However, in response to shrinking public financial resources , non-traditional actors (e.g. social cooperatives and social enterprises) started to design and test new models ten years ago to address growing social needs (Borzaga et al. 2014). Eschewing government involvement, social groups have invented new types of services/products, organizational processes and social practices in the form of new collaborations and personal interactions promoting niche initiatives of social innovation (SI). Many of these models can also be seen as offering the opportunity to further enhance local and regional development in small mountain communities (Mulgan, 2007; Baker and Mehmood, 2015; Bock, 2016).
其他摘要：Global trends such as international migration and large-scale agriculture are having an impact on the economy and society of Italy’s mountain territories. Socio-economic challenges call for new solutions that existing public institutions and private local organizations fail to address properly. Social innovation (SI) has become a relevant paradigm to address social challenges. By reconfiguring existing social practices, it introduces new solutions (e.g. services, practices, cooperation models) to better respond to social needs, improving the wellbeing of mountain areas. In the paper, two initiatives were selected that target empowerment of vulnerable groups (refugees and women farmers). Using the agency-structure framework, an explorative study of these initiatives has been conducted to analyse the process of reconfiguring social practices, the outcomes, and the factors that may enable and hinder the initiatives. The results show that social innovation has transformed the meaning of cultural symbols and the socio-economic roles of the target groups, leading to an improvement of the whole community’s wellbeing.
关键词：développement local; Alpes italiennes; innovation sociale; intégration des réfugiés; autonomisation des agricultrices
其他关键词：local development; social Innovation; refugee integration; women’s empowerment; italian Alps
