ICS Seminar Series - Isaac Lyne
Date: Thursday 1 October 2015
Time: 11.30am - 1pm
Venue: EE.G.02, Western Sydney University, Parramatta South campus
Isaac Lyne
Social Enterprise – Practice and Theory
Abstract
Social enterprise has emerged since the 1990's as a prominent focus of 'development.' In higher income countries it is part of 'regional development' or 'regeneration,' creating labour market integration for the hard to reach and filling gaps in welfare services. It has also emerged as an academic discipline in its own right. In lower income countries however, as an emergent part of international development discourse, social enterprise has been conflated with microfinance, corporate social responsibility, 'business at the bottom of the pyramid' and public private partnerships – all of which converge in the conception of 'inclusive business.'
This paper considers what discourse of social enterprise is likely to have the most sustainable effects on community development in Cambodia. The doctoral project I will refer to attempted to address the missing voice of Cambodians at the grassroots. Data was generated through participatory action research taking place over 1 year in 2 Cambodian peri-urban villages in partnership with the NGO Buddhism for Social Development Action. The research adopted principals of Asset Based Community Development and was inspired significantly by Community Partnering, a research project of the Community Economies Collective. The paper reviews village relations, the subject positions people adopt in relation to local economic development, ethical dilemmas and contextual factors in Cambodia which seemingly impact on the way that people interpret the raison d'etre and viability of social enterprise in the community.
Biography
Isaac Lyne is a Western Sydney University PhD candidate writing on the role of social enterprise in local economic development in Kampong Cham Province in Cambodia. He first visited Cambodia in 2008 and has mostly lived there since 2009. Between 2009 and 2012 he was the coordinator of a social enterprise project based at the Royal University of Phnom Penh working with the NGO Friends International and the Department of Development and Economic Studies at the University of Bradford in the UK (where he was previously a research and teaching assistant from 2007-2009). This project was funded by the British Council under the Development Partnerships in Higher Education program. Isaac continues to teach 'Social Enterprise and Non-Profit Management' to post-graduate students at RUPP and has also been a coordinator of the National Social Enterprise Conference of Cambodia since 2011. He has written peer reviewed articles on social enterprise and also co-authored select conference and working papers circulated by the EMES international research network for social enterprise.
