Innovationsparadoxen : En studie av två försök att med nyskapande insatser lösa sociala problem

This inquiry deals with experimental local social work, which out of the purpose of creating innovation in social work, try to solve problems of integration in deprived urban areas. Focus is on those kinds of experiments that are formulated within an empowerment perspective, and where empowerment is seen as synonymous with innovation and solutions of severe social problems. The inquiry deals with how innovation and empowerment are taking place in the integration of immigrants and refugees. What are the consequences, and what is the relevance to the group in question? How can such efforts bee understood and related to an innovation perspective? The study is part of a research program about innovation in municipalities and regions. The program was initiated and financed by “Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting”. Two different projects of integration, in Denmark and Sweden, were chosen as the empirical background. Both projects were dealing with integration of women with a background as migrants or refugees and both projects had empowerment as a goal. The inquiry shows that there has been a change in the understanding of empowerment. Nowadays empowerment is focusing on strengthen the ability of individuals and groups to use their resources and to take part in society as active citizen. These are changes which in crucial ways differ from the meanings of the concept, as it was ascribed in the social work of the seventies. At that time the concept was especially connected to a critique of the welfare state and its institutions. Empowerment was meant to mobilize the resources of marginal groups to create transformation and emancipation. The inquiry concentrates on transformations and the relation between normalisation and emancipation. What are the potentials of transformation in innovation? Are processes of innovation making transformations and renewals or are they expressions of social discourses at a given time? Are processes of innovation contributing to strengthen the prevailing order rather than change it? In another way: To whom are processes of innovation innovative