Social innovation and social economy

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to offer a new theoretical framework to the Spanish housing studies. This article combines different traditions and different frameworks (social innovation, social economy), in order to position the crisis of evictions in Spain and the emergence of housing co-operatives in a new theoretical context. In the first Section, we study the concept of social innovation, focused on a societal and non-utilitarian perspective. In the second Section the interconnections of social innovation and social economy are studied, joining the solid working tradition of Crises- Quebec (CRISES, Centre de recherche sur les innovations sociales). In the third and fourth Sections the authors try to apply the social innovation and social economy framework to the Spanish housing context. Thus, in the third Section the Spanish movement against evictions (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca), surged and organized by civil society, is analyzed as a germen of social innovation. In the last part of the paper, housing cooperatives are studied, as a possible way to change the main housing model of Spain.