A key question of this conference is “Can social enterprise help overcome the current crises?” This paper explores how focusing on practices of ethical deliberation and negotiation creates openings for social enterprises to generate diverse economic practices that can be powerful drivers for sustainable transitions.
It follows the community economies research tradition which, through processes of reframing, make visible the diverse economic activity already happening around the world. Reframing what constitutes ‘the economy’ helps to de-centre the prevailing capitalocentric discourse. Community economies scholars consider this practice of reframing as central to the processes of economic transformation.
The term ‘ethical’ is not used to ‘signal the presence of good’, but rather to establish a ‘radical emptiness’ (Gibson-Graham 2008b) through which the ‘challenges, problems, barriers, difficulties’ inherent in performing community economies can be struggled with (Gibson-Graham 2006). Through recognising the interdependence of relationships, and through creating economic spaces and networks for intentional action, ‘a collective project of construction’ is fostered (Gibson-Graham 2008a). To help make these complex negotiations more transparent, a cluster of ethical concerns or ‘coordinates’ that can guide processes of ongoing deliberation and contestation are identified (Gibson-Graham et al. 2017).
In this paper these coordinates are explored through one of the case study enterprises involved in the Reconfiguring the Enterprise: Shifting Manufacturing Culture in Australia research project (Gibson, Cameron, Healy & McNeill 2016). It also draws on other industry-focused research projects the author has worked on with the enterprise (McNeill, Barraket & Elmes 2017; Burkett & McNeill 2017; Kernot & McNeill 2011).
The enterprise is a regionally based not-for-profit community development association established in 1987. It runs a variety of different social services, community initiatives and the like. The paper focuses on two of the organisation’s social enterprises.
The interpretations and perspectives conveyed through the paper are hopeful ones. This reflects the community economies research agenda which goes beyond simply acknowledging research as a generative and performative practice that shapes our worlds through its interventions, as Law and Urry suggest (2004). The agenda is an implicitly political one, aiming to ‘practice what it preaches’ by locating research practice as a site for deliberation - where making explicit what our research practices are helping to make possible is central.
Through exploration of the case, the aim of the paper is to draw attention to the critical practices that can make social enterprises a powerful force for transformative social change. Rather than allowing an essentially capitalocentric framing to corral the social enterprise discourse within narrowly conceived debates it becomes possible to enrol diverse actors in the ethical negotiation practices that are an engine house for driving sustainable transitions.
REFERENCES
Burkett, I. & McNeill, J. (2017). Generating social value: Framing the value question in commissioning and social procurement. Melbourne, Australia: Social Traders. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317299791_Framing_the_value_question_in_commissioning_social_procurement
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2006). The end of capitalism (as we knew it): A Feminist critique of political economy. Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2008a). Diverse economies: Performative practices for 'other worlds'. Progress in Human Geography, 32 (5), 613-632
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2008b). Other economies are already here! Response to commentaries on ‘A Postcapitalist Politics’. Emotion, Space & Society, 1, 155-158
Gibson, K., Cameron, J., Healy, S. & McNeill, J. (2016). Reconfiguring the enterprise: Shifting manufacturing culture in Australia – project description. Available at: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/research/projects/reconfiguring_the_enterprise_shifting_manufacturing_culture_in_australia
Gibson-Graham, J.K., Cameron, J., Dombroski, K., Healy S. & Miller, E. (2017). Cultivating Community Economies: Tools for building a liveable world. In: Alperovitz, G. & Speth, J.G. (eds) The Next System Project. Available at: http://www.thenextsystem.org/cultivating-community-economies/
Kernot, C. & McNeill, J. (2011). Australian Stories of Social Enterprise. Sydney: UNSW. Available at: http://www.csi.edu.au/media/uploads/Australian_Stories_of_Social_Enterprise_-_April_2011.pdf
Law, J. & Urry, J. (2004). Enacting the social. Economy and Society, 33 (3), 390–410
McNeill, J., Barraket, J. & Elmes, A. (2017, June). Community Recycling Enterprises: NSW Impact Measurement Project Final Report. Melbourne, Australia: Centre for Social Impact Swinburne for NSW Office of Environment & Heritage. (link location forthcoming)
8. Social enterprises, sustainable transition and common goods
