Abstract

Building upon my working role at the Giannino Bassetti Foundation, this chapter presents some work-in-progress insights into high-technology artisan working practices and solidarity economies, which play a role in expanding the debate on responsible innovation (RI). I take the term poesis-intensive innovation as described and used by Bassetti Foundation President, Piero Bassetti, and defined here as the addressing of ethical and aesthetic issues through a production process. I argue that the use of this concept as an analysis of production processes offers a new interpretative standpoint in RI research, which brings the personal convictions of those working within the process to the fore and adds to the body of de facto RI and grass-roots or bottom-up RI literature. I use case studies to argue that the concept can be articulated in two different strands, one technology-orientated and the other organization-orientated, before addressing the concept’s relationship to the current RI debate and developing the concept of poiesis-intensive responsible innovation.