Abstract

The term ‘social innovation’ has come to gather all manner of meanings from policymakers and politicians across the political spectrum. But while actors may unproblematically unite around a broad perspective of social innovation as bringing about (positive) social change, we rarely see evidence of a shared vision for the kind of social change that social innovation ought to bring about. Taking inspiration from methods that recognise the utopian thinking inherent in the social innovation concept, we draw upon Erik Olin Wright’s concept of ‘real utopias’ to investigate the moral underpinnings inherent in the public statements of Ashoka, one of the most prominent social innovation actors operating in the world today. We seek to animate discussion on the moral principles that guide social innovation discourse through examining the problems that Ashoka is trying to solve through social innovation, the world they are striving to create, and the strategies they propose to realise their vision.

摘要

“社会创新”一词已经涵盖了政治领域的政策制定者和政治家的各种含义。但是，尽管行动者可能会毫无问题地围绕社会创新带来（积极的）社会变革的广泛观点团结起来，但我们很少看到关于社会创新应该带来的那种社会变革的共同愿景的证据。从承认社会创新概念中固有的乌托邦思维的方法中汲取灵感，我们借鉴埃里克·奥林·赖特的“真正的乌托邦”概念来调查阿育王公开声明中固有的道德基础，阿育王是最杰出的社会创新参与者之一。在当今世界。