Production, exchange and redistribution practices based on solidarity can be found in almost all areas of economic activity – from agriculture to handicraft, manufacturing, finance, social and care services. These practices privilege the quest for solidarity (among producers, between producers and consumers, in diverse territories and environments, etc.) over individual (or group) profit and rent-seeking behaviour. Long ignored, social and solidarity economy (SSE) practices have received growing attention over recent decades from academics and policymakers alike (Laville and Cattani 2006). On an international level, this growing interest has manifested itself in publications, conferences, legislation, and the creation of public institutions for SSE. Furthermore, in 2013, UNRISD created a UN Inter-Agency Task Force on SSE. In the face of the challenges of inequality and climate change, the UN has put forward SSE as a possible alternative model of production, financing and consumption (UNRISD 2014).
This growing interest in the social and solidarity economy from both academics and politicians, however, remains gender-blind, even though these practices are highly gendered and women play a major role in them. How should we understand and analyze the over-representation of women? Is it an additional illustration of women’s work overload and of the under-valorization of women’s role? This question is all the more crucial given that employment in the non-profit sector, which characterizes most of SSE initiatives, is often of poor quality in terms of wages and labor conditions. Or should we understand women’s presence as a positive factor for the emergence of innovative forms of wealth, based on solidarity and equality? In other words, can SSE be feminist – and not only feminine – and furthermore, in which conditions? In continuation of our past work and in order to contribute to this debate, this paper is based on empirical data from various parts of the world, and enriched by an on-going comparative research project on the topic. We firstly argue that a dual view is needed, which is both critical and “possibilist”. A critical view, on the one hand, will focus on the nature of social relations within the SSE and their articulation with dominant power relations. It considers how SSE initiatives may liberate women from confined spaces or, on the contrary, strengthen or create new inequalities based in gender but also race, caste, religion, etc. It also considers how the SSE can substitute for public action, be it local, national or supranational, or how it might turn into intermediaries for global value chains, or even for religious and sometimes fundamentalist networks. A possibilist view, on the other hand, pays attention to the interstices of social change, to unexpected and often invisible paths of agency and emancipation, to the “sociology of emergences” - rather than a “sociology of absence” (Sousa Santos and Rodriguez 2013). This double perspective is inspired both by the substantive meaning of economics proposed by Polanyi, and by feminist scholarship. It sheds light on how solidarity economy practices renew economics and politics, understood as categories of action and thought. This double perspective reveals the unexpected potential of SEE. Far from being confined to fleeting, short-lived or micro experiences, SSE practices help to rethink the economy and to transform it in practice. The economy is not limited to the production or allocation of resources, but involves all relations and activities that are necessary to the reproduction and the provisioning of life. The SSE combines concrete economic actions to practices of discussion and deliberation, and sometimes mobilisation, resistance and struggles. It thus contributes to a reassessment and transformation of the meaning of politics. They offer a reply to ongoing of feminist movements, convinced that gender equality calls for rethinking the nature of the economy/ics and of politics, as well as the heterogeneity of women’s constraints and aspirations. This double perspective also highlights the multiple and complex paths of emancipation which result from the intertwining of exchange principles (reciprocity, redistribution, market and householding). This balance is in constant flux which, we argue, should not be considered as a weakness, but as a precondition for the existence and the sustainability of SSE initiatives.
Key references
Hirschman, A. (1971). A Bias for Hope: Essays on Development and Latin America, New York : Yale University Press.
Laville, J.-L. & Cattani, A. D. (eds.) 2006. Dictionnaire de l'autre économie, Paris: Gallimard.
de Sousa Santos, B., Rodríguez Garavito, C. (2013). Alternatives économiques : les nouveaux chemins de la contestation. In I. Hillenkamp & J.-L. Laville (éds.), Socioéconomie et démocratie. L'actualité de Karl Polanyi (pp. 127-147). Toulouse: Erès.
UNRISD. (2014). Social and Solidarity Economy and the Challenge of Sustainable Development. UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy Position Paper. www.unsse.org/?page_id=499.
Verschuur, Ch., Guérin I. & Hillenkamp I. (eds) (2015). Une économie solidaire peut-elle être féministe ? Homo oeconomicus, mulier solidaria, Paris : L’Harmattan.
10. Gender and diversity issues
