Do networks foster inclusion of agrarian micro-entreprenuers in rural areas?

CRAVIOTTI, CLARA

Malta

Conferencia; Perspectives on Social Capital and Social Inclusion; 2008

The rise of micro-enterprises as an alternative work strategy of unemployed and low-income workers can be situated in the context of the Argentine economic crisis of 1998-2002, which led to the promotion of self-employment by local governments and other institutions, sometimes under the framework of endogenous development strategies aimed at strengthening local resources.  There are significant restrictions to the creation of micro-enterprises in agriculture, such as the need to have some type of access to land, the availability of financial resources to cover expenditures during the period of time involved between the beginning of production activities and the crop, delivery and sale of products in the respective markets, and to cuntervail the seasonal character of income.   In the cases studied by our research project, all of them residents of small towns, social capital (especially bridging social capital, in the form of connections between well-established producers and newcomers) has revealed itself as a way of overcoming some of these restrictions.  However, vulnerable agents who initiate micro-enterprises face important difficulties to be included in preexistent organizations based in activity adscription, showing the persistence of segmented sociability spaces.