Abstract
Digital social innovation (DSI) is commonly associated with cities. However, DSI is not limited to urban space. In rural areas, it is the inhabitants themselves who start and push digitalization projects, and collaborate with professional actors from the outside. These innovators see digitalization as a chance to solve rural problems such as scarce mobility, declining community interactions, demographic change, or urban-rural digital divide. In consequence, DSI such as smart community centers, digitally managed car-sharing, or community apps also emerge in rural areas. The article seeks to better understand the different actors responsible for the rural digitalization processes. Based on interviews, document analyses, and field notes, the article focuses on two cases in rural Germany: Wesedun is part of a regional digitalization project empowering villagers to evolve own ideas, and Wokisrab shows off a bottom-up driven digitalization strategy. Both villages are aiming to improve the quality of life. Indicated by these cases and inspired by literature on social innovation, the actor groups are identified as drivers, supporters, and users. Based on the interactions and collaborations of these groups, we introduce Smart Villagers, the bottom-up actors of rural DSI. In order to design governance processes, the results indicate that even though Smart Villagers are motivated, skilled and engaged, they want and need the support of professional actors from the outside.
Highlights
Digital social innovation (DSI) is usually considered “ active in cities [and] has taken off most successfully in urban areas” (Stokes, Baeck, & Baker, 2017, p. 33)
The manifold challenges of rural areas in Europe range from demographic change (e.g., Christmann, 2017), and service provision (e.g., BBSR, 2018), to urban-rural digital divide (e.g., Salemink, Strijker, & Bosworth, 2017; Townsend, Wallace, & Fairhurst, 2015)
Digital initiatives in rural areas provide a broad perspective on how DSI develop in rural areas and what actors are involved in the process of making their villages more liveable places
Summary
Digital social innovation (DSI) is usually considered “ active in cities [and] has taken off most successfully in urban areas” (Stokes, Baeck, & Baker, 2017, p. 33). Digital initiatives in rural areas provide a broad perspective on how DSI develop in rural areas and what actors are involved in the process of making their villages more liveable places. This article continues with a literature review developing a perspective on characteristics of actors of social innovation in rural areas and connects these debates to literature on DSI (Section 2). Afterwards, we present the DSI initiatives in the two villages (Section 3) This is followed by an analysis of the actors’ roles in the DSI. Based on these findings, we introduce the notion Smart Villagers as central actors in rural DSI and elaborate their characteristics (Section 4). We conclude with some considerations on how our insights might be used for other rural DSI, emphasizing the limitations of our research (Section 5)
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