Socially Innovative Initiatives in Deprived Rural Areas of Germany, Ireland and Portugal: Exploring Empowerment and Impact on Community Development

In many (remote) rural areas of Europe and the world, rural communities are facing various challenges. One response is residents leaving their communities. However, there are also many empirical examples of residents staying, launching project initiatives, developing new solutions and experimenting with new practices. This is what we call social innovation. What experiences do actors have in these processes? Can we speak of empowerment? To what extent can such initiatives have an impact on community development? In this article, we explore these questions, for which there is little related empirical research. By applying a multi-sited individualising comparison to case studies in three European countries (Germany, Ireland and Portugal), we obtain empirical evidence of the following dimensions of empowerment that Avelino et al. outline conceptually: the achievement of autonomy, competence and relatedness and also impact, meaning and resilience. Often, however, it is not the individual actors for whom such effects can be reported. Rather, the social initiative as such or the local administration has acquired new skills and autonomy. Regarding community development, ‘pathways to impact’, such as infrastructure improvements and/or the creation of new employment opportunities and/or the influx of new residents, could be identified. However, this development often depended on both opportunity and the cooperation and goodwill of many stakeholders.