Economic Actions in Noncooperative Spaces: Evidence from Rohingya Refugee Camps

• In Event: 20862 - Section on International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Refugees

Abstract

To improve understanding of economic activities in highly constraining social spaces, we develop a detailed elaboration of the recent concept of noncooperative spaces by exploring the subtle and intersecting ways and arrangements whereby social structures benefit some economic actors while disadvantaging the majority. Specifically, we present noncooperative spaces as highly rigid, man-made spaces shaped by the convergence of various powerful actors' partial interests on multiple levels of interaction. In so doing, we suggest a theoretical framework which accounts for the fundamental contextual differences between cooperative (traditional) spaces in which most of our existing theories of economic action have been developed and noncooperative (contemporary) spaces as an increasingly important phenomenon of our time. Our findings are based on rare, independent access to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, where we conducted an in-depth survey to examine how marginalized actors create and sustain their business activities in a highly restrictive environment. We conclude that conventional factors such as start-up capital, access to debt, possession of prior business experiences, and internal social ties – all of which are deemed imperative in conventional theories of economic action – are not necessarily the main contributors to socio-economic development in noncooperative spaces.

Authors

• Rashedur Chowdhury, University of Essex

• Benjamin Siedler

• Saurabh Lall