A Substantive View of Social Enterprises as Neo-endogenous Rural Development Actors

Social enterprises are recognised as relevant rural development actors. The specific features of social enterprises operating within rural areas (i.e. their relational, socially innovative and multi-stakeholder character and their focus on integrated development) concur with the principles of the neo-endogenous approach to rural development, which stress the potential role of third sector organisations as development actors within governance frameworks. In order to study this phenomenon, that links social enterprises and rural development, we propose a conceptual and methodological framework drawing from Polanyi’s socio-economic theory, complemented with the concepts of place, spatial scale and corporate agency. Through the proposed framework, we advocate for a plural vision of the economy, socio-spatial and geopolitical sensitive concepts and overcoming methodological individualism for the study of an increasingly relevant phenomenon such as the participation of third sector organisations like social enterprises in the (neo-endogenous) development of rural areas.