Abstract
Social innovation is a form of systemic change to society, and designers are key proponents of this approach. This paper describes how design interventions were used in the Izindaba Zokudla project that aims to create opportunities for urban agriculture in a sustainable food system in Soweto. The creation of the Soweto Imvelo Market by designers and researchers from Izindaba Zokudla, a local farmers’ organisation and other stakeholders identifies two aspects of social innovation that were instrumental in developing this alternative in the Johannesburg Food System: The creative contribution that designers can bring to social innovation and the need to socialise design into broader coalitions for change. The paper describes the socialisation of designers and their artefacts and technologies in terms of the theory of social capital which leads to specific recommendations on how methods should be used and how we should understand the interaction of design with social movements. The creative contributions designers make disrupts and transforms the ways we think of food, and this facilitates the socialisation of design in social innovation interventions. The paper makes recommendations from this analysis in order to guide further interventions by designers for social innovation.