Theodoros Papaioannou
(The Open University)
Les Levidow
(Open University)
Chairs:
Les Levidow
(Open University)
Theodoros Papaioannou
(The Open University)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Politics and political economy
Sessions:
Friday 8 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Exploring the Role of Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) Organisations in Post Covid-19 Global Development.
Panel P08 at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
This panel invites theoretical and empirical papers that critically examine the role Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) Organisations such as co-operatives, mutual benefit societies and social enterprises in the post Covid-19 global development. The focus is on resilience through inclusive innovation.
Long Abstract:
The last two decades have been characterised by recurrent economic crises. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected already fragile and exploitative systems of employment around the world. Meanwhile this pandemic has also accelerated technological innovations. These not only include apps and online platforms which enable new forms of communication, interactive learning, and employment but also automated machine technologies, such as robots and artificial intelligence, which potentially worsen the precarious position of workers worldwide. In this disruptive socio-economic and technological context, SSE organisations’ agile and resilient practices emerge as potentially transformative ones, supporting an alternative model of inclusive innovation for Covid-19 recovery: this model leaves no-one behind and enables producers to take control of decisions. In this sense, it is an inclusive model that promotes the use of social technologies (i.e., innovative techniques and methodologies, co-created with communities to resolve social inclusion problems) for enhancing the human capabilities of lower income and marginalised people, improving their social welfare and potentially empowering them to deal with post-Covid-19 economic and social challenges.
This panel invites papers that critically examine how SSE organisations have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, whether their innovations have been inclusive and to what extend they are prepared to use their new sustainable and inclusive forms of work and agile practises (i.e., those established during the Covid-19 crisis) for helping disenfranchised and marginalised communities to recover economically and socially.
Methodology
Panellists will upload pre-recorded presentations. Convenors of this panel (Papaioannou and Levidow) will ask panellists and audience to watch other people’s presentations in advance of the synchronous discussion session(s). The convenors will also share in advance what they think are the key questions emerging from the recorded
The paper explores how solidarity networks like Quarantined Student- Youth Network in Kolkata provided care to the marginalised communities during the pandemic. By doing so, it defines the framework of inclusive innovation through a politics of care.
Paper long abstract:
The pandemic has exposed the vulnerability, paradox and precarity of urban living more severely on the margins of the rural-urban interface. The inadequacy of the state support was more prominent with the absence of infrastructure of care. Simultaneously, new forms of infrastructure evolved during the pandemic through 'networked mobilisation' of social capital. Civil society's participation outside the state's premise is not new but they reconfigured their participation through solidarity networks. Here solidarity networks have emerged to provide care and support to vulnerable communities. The current paper focuses on one such solidarity network viz. Quarantined Student- Youth Network (QSYN) in Kolkata and explores how a politics of care was operationalised to support marginalised communities. QSYN mobilised resources through crowdfunding and was involved in setting up community kitchens and volunteer-led educational programmes for economically marginalised groups in Kolkata. By adopting the framework of 'inclusive innovation' the paper contributes in two ways. On one hand, it decentres the normative idea of infrastructure and establishes solidarity networks as innovative forms of infrastructure. On the other hand, the paper brings politics of care to the centre of the inclusive innovation framework and opens up possibilities for a nuanced understanding of civil society solidarity networks.
This paper explores public value and social solidarity as good governance, aggregation of individual interests, and reconciliation of conflicts of interest. It assesses normative requirements, policy prescription, and practical implications of pandemic response and economic social solidarity.
Paper long abstract:
Governance is the process of governing by those with the authority (legitimized power) to do so. We expect those who govern to do so in the interests of the governed, usefully providing services that can best, or perhaps only, be achieved through collective action, to provide value to the public. It is an ongoing and evolutionary process which looks to reconcile conflicting interests, through the rule of law, and introduce security for all members of a particular community. Governance is also a process through which collective good and goods are generated so that all are better off than they would be when acting individually. Good governance, therefore, implies a concern by those who govern with both the security and wellbeing of those who are governed. A further element of governance recognises the rights of those who are governed, and the obligations towards them imposed upon those who govern.
Given that the interests of different individuals and groups are often conflictual, governance involves an aggregation of individual interests to provide a comprehensive policy platform representing public value. Finally, governance revolves around the practical implementation of legitimate measures to facilitate the peaceful reconciliation of conflicting interests. The COVID-19 pandemic has made these public value governance functions and obligations harder to fulfil. The reconciliation of different understandings of public value and their aggregation into a coherent policy platform has proved particularly challenging. This paper concludes with ways in which those who govern can reconceptualize their obligations to bring about a degree of reconciliation.
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Les Levidow (Open University)
Theodoros Papaioannou (The Open University)
Short Abstract:
This panel invites theoretical and empirical papers that critically examine the role Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) Organisations such as co-operatives, mutual benefit societies and social enterprises in the post Covid-19 global development. The focus is on resilience through inclusive innovation.
Long Abstract:
The last two decades have been characterised by recurrent economic crises. The Covid-19 pandemic has affected already fragile and exploitative systems of employment around the world. Meanwhile this pandemic has also accelerated technological innovations. These not only include apps and online platforms which enable new forms of communication, interactive learning, and employment but also automated machine technologies, such as robots and artificial intelligence, which potentially worsen the precarious position of workers worldwide. In this disruptive socio-economic and technological context, SSE organisations’ agile and resilient practices emerge as potentially transformative ones, supporting an alternative model of inclusive innovation for Covid-19 recovery: this model leaves no-one behind and enables producers to take control of decisions. In this sense, it is an inclusive model that promotes the use of social technologies (i.e., innovative techniques and methodologies, co-created with communities to resolve social inclusion problems) for enhancing the human capabilities of lower income and marginalised people, improving their social welfare and potentially empowering them to deal with post-Covid-19 economic and social challenges.
This panel invites papers that critically examine how SSE organisations have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic, whether their innovations have been inclusive and to what extend they are prepared to use their new sustainable and inclusive forms of work and agile practises (i.e., those established during the Covid-19 crisis) for helping disenfranchised and marginalised communities to recover economically and socially.
Methodology
Panellists will upload pre-recorded presentations. Convenors of this panel (Papaioannou and Levidow) will ask panellists and audience to watch other people’s presentations in advance of the synchronous discussion session(s). The convenors will also share in advance what they think are the key questions emerging from the recorded
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 8 July, 2022, -