Introduction

In this chapter, we investigate the tension between bureaucratic expertise and situated knowledge in the context of social innovation. We address the frictions that emerge internally in public organisations when they attempt to respond to local demands of social innovation, citizen's engagement and democratic participation. Our contribution to a critique of contemporary technocratic urban management and planning lies in identifying the key axes of internal conflict between public professional expertise and the situated knowledge in urban neighbourhoods. We particularly look at the actions of ‘boundary spanners’, and their narratives, to examine the role of a new professional profile within public organisations. Boundary spanners work across organisational boundaries developing a specific expertise which is instituted to connect the internal working of bureaucracies with the external demands and needs of actors in particular urban areas.

Throughout Europe, organisations with a public task aim to facilitate community initiatives, as these are believed to strengthen citizens’ capabilities and community cohesion, as well as contributing to more tailored responses to the local context and needs (Boonstra and Boelens, 2011; De Wilde et al, 2014; Edelenbos and Van Meerkerk, 2016). Community initiatives are collaborative activities by citizens through which they provide community goods or services based on their own motives and under their own conditions (Bakker et al, 2012; Denters, 2016). Examples include citizens starting community gardens, setting up local sustainable energy companies or organising community activities to increase interaction between neighbours. Facilitating such initiatives will entail public professionals serving the ambitions of citizens and generating conditions which support community initiatives in realising and managing their initiative, such as providing means, networks and intellectual support (Oude Vrielink and Van de Wijdeven, 2011). However, a facilitating role comes with complicating tensions as the informal and action-oriented logic of community initiatives (CIs) are often at odds with the formal and procedurally-oriented logic of organisations with a public task (POs) (Van Dam et al, 2014). For instance, there is a tension between acting fast to retain the enthusiasm of initiators and simultaneously carefully aligning the initiative with the policies and interests of the PO, to support the initiative more sustainably. In this chapter we analyse such tensions and explore how boundary spanners, who provide POs with specific expertise in facilitating CIs, can make tensions productive.