"It was hard to come to mutual understanding..." - Multidimensionality of social learning processes in natural resource use in India, Africa and Latin America

Sustainable natural resource use requires that multiple actors reassess their situation in a systemic perspective. This can be conceptualised as a social learning process between actors from rural communities and the experts from outside organisations. A specifically designed workshop oriented towards a systemic view of natural resource use and the enhancement of mutual learning between local and external actors, provided the background for evaluating the potentials and constraints of intensified social learning processes. Case studies in rural communities in India, Bolivia, Peru and Mali showed that changes in the narratives of the participants of the workshop followed a similar temporal sequence relatively independently from their specific contexts. Social learning processes were found to be more likely to be successful if they 1) opened new space for communicative action, allowing for an intersubjective re-definition of the present situation, 2) contributed to rebalance the relationships between social capital and social, emotional and cognitive competencies within and between local and external actors.

Latin Americaʹs emergence in global services: a new driver of structural change in the region?

Studies of international production acknowledge that the ability of firms to learn, upgrade and innovate in global value chains (GVCs) is influenced by knowledge flows within these global networks and by the national institutional systems in which the firms are embedded. Little is known, however, about how differences in national innovation and business systems shape the way firms and national economies insert themselves in global value chains and how this influences their upgrading trajectories. Based on a review of the existing academic literature, the chapter examines the impact of national innovation and business systems from middle-income and developing countries on learning and innovation processes in services GVCs.