Sustainable Social Enterprises for the Betterment of Disadvantaged Labour: An Empirical Study of Cooperatives, Kerala

• In Event: 4166 - Section on Marxist Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 2. What if We All Just Co-operate? Examining Labor from the Worker’s Perspective

Abstract

The economic and social commission for Asia and the Pacific highlighted the transformative social enterprises as the key to sustainable development in Asia. Also, stressed on the active processes for social mobilisation involving participatory approaches that engage civil society in constructive dialogue and public participation. People well endowed with social resources succeed better in attaining improved living standards. The alarming residential segregation and deteriorated quality of living conditions of migrants are a significant issue of concern in contemporary societies. Here the organised capital is exploiting the primarily dispersed migrant labour. In this context, cooperatives are at the forefront of building a stock of social capital among the disadvantaged labour. Although the cooperative way of counteracting the harsh realities of nineteenth-century capitalism received sufficient academic attention, there is a vast scope to explore labour cooperatives in the recent times. The heterogeneity in membership (migrant and native workforce) arising from the current labour in-migration as a response to the escalating labour demand can be seen as a new challenge before cooperatives which make this study an exciting account of research. The main contribution of this paper is to analyse to what extent social capital derives from cooperative association help in-migrants to make headway on the labour market. The results of an empirical study based on a primary survey (2017) suggest that cooperatives are successful in providing decent working and living conditions to migrants through collectivism embedded in cooperative principles.

Authors

• Sarga T K

• Bupinder Zutshi, Centre for the Study of Regional Development/ Jawaharlal Nehru University