Social Innovation in Rural Regions: Urban Impulses and Cross-Border Constellations of Actors

Research on social innovation in rural regions is gaining momentum. However, the question where new impulses for innovation in rural regions are being created remains unanswered. This article argues that social innovation processes in rural regions can be inspired by cross-border constellations of actors and do, at times, build on bodies of knowledge and practices widespread in urban areas. Ethnographic data from Germany's rural Eifel region in Rhineland-Palatinate, Lower Lusatia, and the Uckermark region located in Brandenburg illustrates the way in which external urban factors and cross-border constellations of actors can influence rural social innovation. Thereby, rural social innovation stimulates the intersection of rural and urban elements (strengthening rural-urban relations) and the erosion of rural-urban antagonisms.