This article focuses on consumption-induced poverty alleviation in the urban subsistence setting. The increasing urbanization of poverty (Datta, 2006; )—which results in slum growth and increasing vulnerability due to increased costs of living (Boonyabancha and Mitlin, 2012), cuts in income due to unemployment, small incomes and day-to-day survival strategies (De Soto, 2000; Rosa, 2012)—illustrates a commoditization of poverty where income and work are the most important assets (Moser, 1998; Wratten, 1995). The BOP approach to consumption in subsistence communities, which is largely managerial in perspective, is contested because of its focus on individualized poverty alleviation. Income is but one (of many) means to enhance the well-being of the poor (Ansari et al, 2012; Sen, 1985, 1999), and a capability view on poverty alleviation emphasizes the socio-material and structural features of increasing the functionings of the urban poor, i.e., the ability to realize things perceived as valuable. Our interest in capability building among subsistence communities has turned our attention to the bridging opportunities of social capital enhancement in subsistence communities (Ansari et al, 2012). Recent research on business initiatives as generators of bridging social capital acknowledge the social enterprise as a vehicle for capability building and inclusive growth (Azmat et al, 2015) in subsistence communities (George et al., 2012).
The social enterprise, combining resources from business, non-profit or government organizations in novel ways with the aim to create social value (Austin et al., 2006), is particularly interesting as the link to subsistence consumers’ access to resources and skills that enable their participation in the formal market. In this paper, we investigate how social enterprises enable the realization of urban subsistence consumers’ functionings through bridging social capital. The aim of this paper is to describe (1) functionings in the urban subsistence setting and (2) how they can be met through social enterprise provided bridging social capital.
We draw on a study of (1) the self-reported consumption needs of informal workers belonging to a subsistence urban community in a South Indian city and (2) the offerings of social enterprises in this city. We analyze the functionings of urban subsistence consumers and social enterprise social capital building through the lens of practice theory in terms of elements of material, meaning and competences (Shove and Pantzar, 2005; Shove et al, 2012).
This article extends scholarly knowledge on the interplay of social capital sources for the sake of poverty alleviation in settings where poverty is, to a large extent, commoditized. The specific characteristics of urban subsistence communities, in combination with institutional voids (Mair, 2010), make discussions about formal/transaction-based systems of exchange versus informal/ reciprocity-based market systems instrumental for the contribution of social enterprise to wealth creation in these communities (London et al, 2014). We show how these different systems of exchange can be combined in social enterprise engagements. In particular, we highlight the influence of norms motivating social capital transfer on the realization of consumer-related functionings and how such norms may be an outcome of government programmers that are part of social enterprise bundles of activities.
