Social Innovation and Community Development: A Civil Society-Driven Model from Kad Kong Kao, Phrae Province

Abstract

This article examines the modalities of social innovation as instantiated in community-driven revitalisation of an old town area, with empirical reference to the Kad Kong Kao (กาดกองเก่า) initiative in Phrae Province, Northern Thailand. Methodologically anchored in a qualitative research approach - drawing on triangulated evidence from semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis, and non-participant observation - the study elucidates three analytically salient dimensions of social innovation. First, the Kad Kong Kao management team successfully mobilises cultural capital (specifically vernacular architectural heritage and intergenerational embodied knowledge) as a mechanism for simultaneously addressing demographic aging, the dereliction of historical domiciles, and the erosion of communal identity, while engendering complementary subsistence economies. Second, Kad Kong Kao exhibits a collaborative development of local cultural tourism, wherein tourism functions not as an extractive modality of commodification but as a vector for endogenous heritage conservation and socio-spatial cohesion. Third, Kad Kong Kao exemplifies a citizen-driven, grassroots community development project characterised by civil society activeness and co-production with public sector institutions, whereby associative networks constitute flexible and bottom-up infrastructures of local service delivery. The findings extend theoretical debates on social innovation and community development by demonstrating the interplay between grassroots social innovation and community development that results in community-centric, area-based revitalisation steered by an engaged citizenry.