THE QUALITATIVE INTERVIEW IN THE HANDS OF THE SOCIAL INNOVATOR. USES OF QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS IN THE CATALUNYA COLLABORATORIOS PROGRAM (Atena Editora)

Abstract

This article starts from a challenge: How can we promote social and digital innovation systems at a local level? The response we have given since 2019 through the Catalunya Collaborative Program is: promoting local communities of innovators, and social structures that we call collaboratives. From the collaboratories, the efforts and resources of the interested parties of a territory are coordinated and dynamized, and collaborative projects of social and digital innovation are promoted. To arrive at this scenario, we began by doing a double study, documentary and ethnographic, in which the qualitative interview is essential.

In this article we value the strategic importance of qualitative interviews (open and in-depth) in the hands of researchers-innovators to learn about and subsequently involve the agents of a territory in the creation of a community and a collaborative. The ethnographic interviews are the first of a series of concatenated actions in the medium and long term that culminate in the creation of new social structures dedicated to the coordination of local challenges and the generation of projects.

In the first place, the term collaborations and the Collaboration Program are introduced. Next, the hypothesis of the collaborative is exposed, the model we use, and how we process the knowledge acquired in the round of interviews to advance in the successive phases of the creation of this new social and symbolic construction. Finally, we present the results comparing three different empirical cases. In the conclusions, the title of the paper is taken up again: What does it mean to do an in-depth interview in the hands of a researcher-innovator? Begin to pave the way for change.