Beyond the business case : a community economics approach to gender, development and social economy

Over the past decade or so, attention to gender has moved from the margins to the centre of development rhetoric and practice. With this shift, many of the issues once viewed as ‘outside’ development – such as non-capitalist production and unpaid non-market transactions – are now seen as resources for fostering economic and social progress. So too are attributes once determined as ‘non-economic’ such as care, cooperation and interdependence. In this sense, the historic gender turn in development can be viewed as a project of potential transformation towards social and solidarity economy (SSE) ends, where space for economic justice, non-market production and social subjectivities of care, cooperation and inter-dependence is recognised, negotiated and expanded.