Arenas for Gendering Social Innovation and Marginalized Women’s Collectives

In this chapter, the authors present two cases from different corners of the world: Neighborhood Mothers in Denmark and Design and Dignity in India. They provide a starting point for a discussion of the ways and formats of people-centered social innovation that sustain women’s agency, empowerment and intersecting identities, based on old and new cultures, livelihoods and peer learning. Design and Dignity is a craft and marketing social enterprise aimed at social and economic empowerment of marginalized women by selling an ethnic range of products. The authors display and analyze our two cases applying a thematic grid that identifies the needs and drivers in a people, societal and community context, their institutional and organizational structures, their innovation and implementation strategies and their potentials and challenges. Social innovation is increasingly seen as an alternative development pathway for trying to address contemporary societal challenges with newer strategies.