Discussing “the ordinary political” in critical social innovation

Can critical forms of social innovation answer Swyngedow’s interrogative about what happens after the momentum of outspoken rebellion gestures? Can these give substance to the claims expressed in the extra-ordinary events?

During the Informality and Resistance session of the International Workshop “Quietly Standing Out” organised by Université de Montreal on the 13th Nov 2020, I discussed my theory-building work provisionally titled Critical Social Innovation as “the ordinary political”.

This revolves around the concept of “critical social innovation” (understood as set of initiatives that dismiss their functional role in the re-production of the neo-liberal system, and instead work to deconstructs the nature and logic of the neoclassic economic orthodoxy). My aim is to understand whether this can be considered as a quiet, ordinary form of “the political” that creates the conditions that trigger outspoken political events. Some cases in Rome, Italy, provided the occasion for thinking.

Photo: Pisa – Italy, Speaking Walls (my own picture)