Andreia Lemaître

Securing Livelihoods. Informal Economy Practices and Institutions

Far from the vision of popular actors in the popular economy as reactionary and archaic, stubbornly resisting any move towards change, the books overall aim is to contribute to a broadening and deepening of our understanding of the logic and socio-economic practices of those operating in the informal economy. It focuses on the vulnerabilities of these participants, resulting from high exposure to different risks combined with low social protection, and on the interactions between vulnerability and poverty. It considers security of livelihoods as the guiding principle for multiple practices in the informal economy. Thirteen studies, based on careful analyses of empirical data in different contexts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, contribute to this multidisciplinary discussion. The book describes how people develop their own strategies to solve their problems through the use of interpersonal networks, associations, and other community-based arrangements. Moreover, it shows that informal economy actors systematically reposition themselves vis-a-vis the State, markets, international, and national policies with the aim of enhancing their economic and social security, and they may do this either individually or collectively. The book emphasizes how adaptability of the informal economy can be influenced by such factors as the macroeconomic context, access to financial, technological, and information resources, infrastructure, social protection schemes, and the institutional environment within which adaptations occur. Case studies stress the need to reformulate questions relating to policy intervention based on a more thorough understanding of the perspective of informal economy actors.

Institutionnalisation de l’économie populaire et solidaire en Équateur : une lecture historique de l’encastrement politique des organisations

This article traces the institutionalization process of the popular and solidarity economy (EPS) in Ecuador. Through a historical perspective, we present the four institutional paths that led to political recognition of EPS initiatives as well as their entry into public policies. We show that EPS institutionalization is the result of relations of mutual influence among different categories of actors: organizations, intermediary structures and public authorities. The analysis also highlights the mode of political embeddedness of each institutional path, and the tensions and challenges that organizations are facing in the current institutional framework.

Economía solidaria en el Ecuador: institucionalización y tipos de organizaciones

On the basis of a review of the existing literature on popular and solidarity economy aswell as an empirical study including structured and semi-structured interviews and participant observation, the aim of the article is twofold. First, we present the four institutionalpaths that led to the political and legal recognition of solidarity economy (SE) and itsenrollment in public policies in Ecuador. Second, we suggest a typology of SE initiativesthat arises from those four institutional paths. In the light of the ideal-type proposed byEMES and the work of Coraggio et al. (2015), we identify the main distinctive features ofthe four models, regarding their legal forms, type of mission, governance structure, andresources, among other criteria. These models are then illustrated in different fields ofactivity, both established and emerging ones, in the Ecuadorian landscape. Keywords : solidarity economy, typology, institutionalization, historical paths.