‘Mission: possible’: Empowerment through social-symbolic social innovation

While much of the research on social innovation in developing contexts focuses on the process and how it creates value, less is known about how social innovators navigate paradoxes arising from institutional and socio-cultural conditions to empower communities and drive change. This article seeks to reshape understanding of social innovation processes by utilising the social-symbolic work theory to demonstrate how social innovation occurs at the intersection of international development agendas and local development needs. To address the research question, we draw on a qualitative research method focusing on a case study of the ‘MSI Ladies’ initiative, a programme developed by the global NGO MSI Reproductive Choices to train and support community-based midwives and nurses – locally known as the ‘ladies’ – in delivering crucial sexual and reproductive healthcare across remote regions. We theorise these actors as ‘social-symbolic social innovators’ who overcome challenges to empower underprivileged women in west/central Africa and southeast Asia to access services. Our study highlights the crucial role of these community midwives, acting as either ‘boundary spanners’ or ‘social innovators’ in overcoming institutional paradoxes and co-creating social-symbolic work through their shared identity, agency and goals. The study further suggests that state actors can play a constructive role in enabling social-symbolic social innovation by legitimising and supporting locally embedded intermediaries who translate between institutional layers.