Social innovation and institutionalization: The case of community enterprises in the inner area “Appennino Emiliano”.

In the last decades, peripheral areas have faced progressive processes of depopulation and marginalization, which haveoften resulted in a growing difficulty for the remaining inhabitants to access essential services, such as education, healthand transports. If, on the one hand, public policies in Italy have started to consider these areas as crucial (see the NationalStrategy for Inner Areas, SNAI), on the other hand, local communities have spontaneously engaged in bottom-upinitiatives, which deserve great attention. In this contribution, we will analyse the case of SNAI’s inner area “AppenninoEmiliano”, where so-called “community enterprises” have been active since the 90s, questioning whether they could indeedconstitute an adequate answer to the emerging issues affecting inner/peripheral areas, and be an example of community-ledinnovation that is able to integrate its actions in the scope of a formal, state-led production of local development strategies.

Keywords: community enterprises, social innovation, participatory processes, local development, Strategia Nazionale perle Aree Interne.