Search

Supplemental material, LEC907024 Supplemental Material for Rural social enterprises in Europe: A systematic literature review by Mara Willemijn van Twuijver, Lucas Olmedo, Mary O’Shaughnessy and Thia Hennessy in Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit

Structurally weak rural regions are faced with major economic and social challenges. In comparison to predominantly urban regions, they are economically less productive. They provide fewer desired goods and services and the labour market offers few career opportunities. Shops where daily purchases can be made are scarce, and it is challenging for the inhabitants to move around the region because public transport is very limited. Against this background, the respective regions have experienced considerable declines in populations and, in particular, a brain drain of the young. Downward spirals have been set in motion that have further reduced the number of economic opportunities.

Since the 1990s social enterprises have gained growing attention from academics and policymakers as significant actors to address some of the complex challenges faced by our societies due to their aim of combining social, economic and/or environmental goals using entrepreneurial/innovative means. Rural areas have demonstrated to be a fertile ground for social enterprises. Diverse factors such as a tradition of mutual self-help, a great density of social networks, the often unattractiveness for private investors looking to maximise profits or the consequences of neoliberal policies that have left some rural areas without adequate (basic) services have contributed to the presence of social enterprises within rural areas. The main characteristics of social enterprises operating within European rural areas, i.e. strong local focus, development of networks with external actors, ability to mobilise a wide range of resources, intrinsic relation with the rural context and contribution to different dimensions of development, concur with the principles of neoendogenous rural development. This perspective of rural development advocates for an integrated development of rural localities/areas based on the utilisation of local assets, while recognising the importance of linking local with external actors for attracting those resources not available at the local level and the influence of exogenous-structural (global) factors in local/regional development. Despite this link between rural social enterprises and neoendogenous development, established through a (systematic) literature review of previous research, how rural social enterprises work to contribute to a neoendogenous rural development has not been explored to date, constituting the main aim of this thesis. To pursue this aim, the phenomenon researched has been conceptualised drawing on a ‘substantive’ view of the economy as proposed by Polanyi. According to this view, economic actors and relations are embedded within society and nature, and the economy is formed by three ‘forms of economic integration’, i.e. reciprocity, redistribution and market-exchange. This conceptual framework has been complemented with the concepts of ‘spatial scale’ and ‘place’ in order to add nuance to the analysis of rural social enterprises as neoendogenous development actors. The methodology of this study was underpinned by a critical realist perspective which lies in the combination of a realist ontology with a constructivist epistemology. According to critical realism the ultimate goal of social science research is to uncover the mechanisms that can (partially) explain an observed phenomenon. In order to so, two in-depth case studies of social enterprises operating within Irish rural localities were conducted. During 15 months of continuous engagement with the two rural social enterprises, 36 semi-structured interviews with diverse stakeholders, 321 pages of field notes from participant observations and other complementary materials were gathered. These data were thematically analysed through several rounds of coding performed through an iterative process (of five stages) between data collection, the analysis of empirical data and theoretical reflections. This process allowed for an increasingly focused data collection and for the verification and/or refinement of (preliminary) findings. The findings from this study explain three interrelated mechanisms used by these rural social enterprises when contributing to the neoendogenous development of their localities. The first mechanism explains how the engagement of rural social enterprises in plural and multi-scalar (socio-)economic relations and their collaborative and collective resourcefulness practices are related with their capacity to contribute to an integrated development of their localities. The second mechanism explains how rural social enterprises act as ‘supporting structures’ that enhance regular plural (socio-)economic relations among different local actors within their localities. Thus, it explains their contribution to the institutionalisation of substantive ‘forms of economic integration’ at the local level. The third mechanism explains how the work of rural social enterprises is influenced by the specific features of their rural context and, how these organisations engage with their context as a (integrated) ‘place’. Thus, it explains how rural social enterprises harness and (re)valorise locational, institutional, material and identity aspects when contributing to the development of their localities. In conclusion, this study argues that rural social enterprises (can) act as ‘placial embedded structures’ which (re)valorise (untapped) local assets and attract external resources based on their ability to enhance collective action and to develop synergies with different stakeholders. Therefore, these organisations present great potential to contribute to neoendogenous rural development. However, this study also poses some notes of caution to this potential. First, this potential lies in their complementarity to other key development stakeholders such as public authorities or for-profit local businesses. Second, to draw a realistic picture of this potential, spatially sensitive research and policies that address the heterogeneity of rural areas are needed. These notes are based on the empirical evidence presented in this study which demonstrate how substantive ‘forms of economic integration’ and ‘place’ matter for explaining the work rural social enterprises as neoendogenous rural development actors.

University College Cork introduced its first Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) module in 2016. The module was funded and supported by Horizon2020 funding, specifically the EnRRICH project (Enhancing Responsible Research and Innovation through Curricula in Higher Education). The module is a 5-credit module for PhD students from all disciplines in the early stages of their PhD at University College Cork. Following two fruitful partnerships in the areas of social justice / equality, community family support services and older persons, there was a keen interested to explore partnerships in markedly different areas such as environmental sustainability. A dialogue ensued with CEF where the opportunity and feasibility to collaborate on the CBPR module was explored.

The improvement of migrant population well-being is both a goal in itself as well as a necessary component for achieving a cohesive multicultural society. To contribute to this challenge, this work (a) reviews how migrant well-being has been studied by mainstream psychology; (b) assesses its development from a critical view; and (c) proposes theoretical and methodological approaches to analyze this phenomenon from a more comprehensive perspective. Thus, we emphasize the need for developing analyses which explore the impact of oppressive contextual factors on migrants’ well-being. These analyses must go beyond individual and culturalist perspectives and consider migrants as active agents who struggle and transform the context along their acculturation process. Furthermore, these analyses have to produce specific proposals to improve migrants’ well-being. In order to achieve the former, a liberating community psychology approach together with the use of innovative methodologies of analysis (i.e. multilevel analysis and system dynamics) is proposed as the appropriate framework and tools for overcoming the mentioned challenges. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación SEJ2006-14470 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PSI2011-25554 Centro de Estudios Andaluces PRJ201402367