Sharing a meal: a diversity of performances engendered by a social innovation

This paper explores the dynamics between social innovations and socio-spatial transformations using practice theory as linking pin. Social innovations, such as the case study of a meal sharing platform here presented, are considered as proposals. Using social practice theory as a theoretical lens enables us to explain how the principles of the proposal’s design are moderated and appropriated by its users. Consequently, familiar routinized practices expand, becoming more complex and hybrid. It is in the performance of the practice that this complexity is revealed. Specific focus is on the socio-spatial transfor-mations that social innovations propose. This paper shows how tactics of appropriation can result in trespassing the boundaries between private and public, and between domestic and communitarian space. This way, we connect social innovations to DIY-urbanism, show-ing how citizens appropriate urban space.