Austerity and Social Innovation

Good evening AltAusterity Readers! Apologies for the later posting today, we had some technical difficulties with posting content. Today we bring you a paper that was presented by Dr. John Shields (Ryerson University) that is co-authored by Meghan Joy (Concordia University), and Siu Mee Cheng (Ryerson University). Their paper is titled, "Austerity and Social Innovation: The Case of Social Innovation Labs and Social Impact Bonds" and it explores how social innovation has become one prominent approach that has been taken up to address the challenge of austerity and long-standing social policy problems.

These writers critically examine how the challenges of austerity can be met by unleashing the power of social innovation and entrepreneurship. Their study addresses this proposition and argues that the social innovation agenda is in actuality a driver of neoliberal change that serves to entrench structural inequalities in society (see: Joy and Shields, 2017).

You can find their paper on our Research Page under 'Labour Markets & Lived Experience'. 

If you'd like to see more from these excellent scholars, please see the below links:

John Shields: https://www.ryerson.ca/politics/about-us/personnel/faculty/shields-john/

Meghan Joy: https://www.concordia.ca/faculty/meghan-joy.html

Siu Mee Cheng: http://ryerson.academia.edu/SiuMeeCheng

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