Social Innovation and Sustainability Transition

This book uses a historical and modern lens to reimagine the role that Extension could potentially play in catalyzing reciprocal, co-learning relationships between Land-Grant Universities and their diverse local constituencies. The establishment of statewide extension systems was once seen as a way to ensure that Land-Grant Universities would be accessible and responsive to all of a state's residents. Extension systems continue to offer a front-door to a major public university in almost every county of the United States, but they tend to be viewed primarily as a way to translate science or distribute information from the university to the public. This books argues for the importance of Extension and highlights we are conceiving of this system too narrowly. Only by retelling the stories of the Extension and getting people to see themselves as part of the story can we imagine a different future in which state universities and land-grant colleges engage more authentically and equitably in two-way relationships with their local constituents.

Chapter "Palatable disruption: the politics of plant milk", chapter "Feeding the melting pot: inclusive strategies for the multi-ethnic city", chapter "A carrot isn't a carrot isn't a carrot: tracing value in alternative practices of food exchange", chapter "Virtualizing the 'good life': reworking narratives of agrarianism and the rural idyll in a computer game" and chapter "'Workable utopias' for social change through inclusion and empowerment? Community supported agriculture (CSA) in Wales as social innovation" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license via link.springer.com. "Previously published in Agriculture and Human Values "Special issue: Symposium on Social Innovation and Sustainability Transition" Volume 37, Issue 4, December 2020"

Auteur

Geoff Desa is a professor of management at the Lam Family College of Business. He is a member of the Sustainability Group within the Lam Family College of Business and teaches business and society, strategic management, and social entrepreneurship. Geoff's research examines resource mobilization and venture development in the technology and social entrepreneurship sector. He earned his Ph.D. in business from the University of Washington in Seattle with emphases in technology entrepreneurship, strategic management, and public affairs. Prior to that, Geoff worked at Novera Optics and at Hewlett Packard as an optical engineer. He earned his M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He is on the board of the Common Data Project, a technology social venture engaged in information technology privacy. Xiangping JIA is the Chief Scientist of International Agricultural Research Group at Agricultural InformationInstitute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). He obtained the PhD from University of Hohenheim in 2008, Germany. He has been researching a broad range of development issues associated with agricultural sustainability and innovations, combined digital and human advice in agriculture, agro-food chain governance, sustainable food systems and social finance.

He has been an advisor and consultant for several international organizations (the World Bank, FAO, IFAD, UNEP, SDC, etc.) and a variety of entities of the private sector and the civil society. Thinking and working in hybrid constructions of issues and teams, he values partnerships and impact-oriented changes from system perspectives.