Innovation is one of the most popular concepts and desired phenomena of contemporary Western capitalism. As such, there is a perennial drive to capture said phenomena, and particularly to find new ways to incite and drive the same. In this text, we analyze one specific tactic through which this is done, namely by the culturally colonial appropriation of indigenous knowledge systems. By looking to how jugaad, a system of frugal innovation in India, has been made into fodder for Western management literature, we argue for the need of a more developed innovation critique, e.g., by looking to postcolonial theory.
