Innovative Pathways to Social Transformation: Disruptive Maintenance Through Social Impact Start-ups in Kerala

Abstract

This article describes an emergent innovation ecosystem in the southern Indian state of Kerala. In contrast to a dominant national imagination of start-ups in India as spaces for the development of novel products with high economic potential, we suggest that start-ups in Kerala exhibit a tendency towards ‘social innovation’, that is, start-ups that are strongly oriented by the goal of addressing particular societal needs in addition to being successful on the market. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with start-up founders and other related stakeholders, as well as media and documentary analysis, we highlight in this essay key characteristics of social innovation in Kerala, including their reliance on tech-fix approaches. We also highlight the central role of the Kerala Start-up Mission (KSUM), a state-sponsored nodal agency, as a crucial enabler and shaper of the state’s innovation ecosystem. We further suggest that even as this innovation ecosystem is able to address important societal concerns, it nonetheless bypasses underlying social structures that produce them in the first place. Building on the work of sociologist Cornelius Schubert, we argue that it is analytically productive to interpret social innovation in Kerala as an instance of ‘disruptive maintenance’.