Reflecting and transforming together through evaluative practice in social innovation

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Evaluating the social impact of co-designing is important yet complex in the messy, nuanced, and intersectional context of social change. This paper raises concerns with often-conventional approaches in social innovation and service design that prioritize objectivity, uniformity and predetermination. These concerns magnify when Global North frameworks are applied in Global South without consideration for knowledges, including frameworks, as situated. The authors argue for diversifying evaluative practices in social innovation and service design, drawing on their reflexive learnings through a transcultural peer mentoring program for and with women in creative and social innovation sectors in the Asia Pacific. The narrative traces how the team began with an evaluative ‘framework’, and through its iteration, catalysed transformation in their practices. Rather than detaching the framework for reporting in service design, we discuss gradual shifts as reflexive frameworking, as ongoing practices of adaptation in participatory co-designing.