Civic engagement in transformative social innovation: how proximity factors shape drivers and barriers

Civil society is crucial for societal transformation, but how its engagement can scale up and become institutionally embedded at the regional level remains widely unclear. We enhance the knowledge in this area by linking civic engagement with transformative social innovation (TSI) research. Our aim is to understand how cognitive, social, institutional, organizational and geographical proximity factors strengthen and hinder civic-led TSI initiatives by applying the proximity approach. The object of this case study was the ‘Mitmach-Region Saale-Holzland-Kreis’, an initiative which aims to establish mutual cooperation at a regional level based on solidarity and ‘commoning’. We found that engagement was based primarily on cognitive proximity, whereas organizational distance was the biggest hurdle, also suppressing positive effects from cognitive proximity. We also, most importantly, discovered that contributing to societal transformation played a role in a participant’s engagement, but was particularly suppressed by missing institutional proximity through disapproval from society or the immediate environment. Altogether, strengthening the proximities to promote engagement in civic-led TSI initiatives holds great potential for contributing to societal transformation.