1. TRANSCENDING THE
DEPICTION OF MARKET AND
NON-MARKET LABOUR
PRACTICES, EXPLORING
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR
DE-GROWTH
Second International Conference on
Degrowth, Barcelona March 2010
Colin C Williams : Professor of Public Policy, School of Management, University of Sheffield,
9 Mappin Street Sheffield
S1 4DT, UK, E-mail: C.C.Williams@sheffield.ac.uk
Presented by
Dr. Richard J White : Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography, Faculty of Development and
Society, Sheffield Hallam
University, City Campus, Howard Street, Sheffield, S1 1WB, UK ,
Telephone +44(0)114 2252899,

2. Part I: Moving beyond the economic
binary framework
Part II: The geographies of
community engagement and their
relevance for de-growth.
Part III toward a Total Social
Organization Labour (TSOL)
approach to community self-help

3.  "The Economy haunts and constrains
us as social beings – we find our life
pathways and visions of social
possibility hemmed and hampered
by its singular capitalist identity"
J.K. Gibson-Graham (2001) An Ethics of
the Local
• "Escaping from the economy:
the politics of degrowth"
(Fournier, 2008)
• Putting the economy in its
place

4.  "The iceberg model places the
reputation of economics as a
comprehensive and scientific body of
knowledge under critical suspicion for its
narrow focus and mystifying effects."
"The informal economy
considers those diverse forms
of work and activities that exist
beyond formal employment"
Useful but…
Problematising this formal/
informal binary hierarchy

5. Conventional Representations
Formal (Superordinate) Informal (Subservient)
Growth De-growth
Capitalist Pre-Capitalist
Advanced Primitive
Progressive Residual
Mainstream Marginal
Dynamic Stagnant
Strong Weak
Forward Backward
Extensive Limited

6. Unpaid domestic work
 Community self-help
"Not-for-profit motivated help provided for
and by friends, neighbours or other
members of ones' community either on (1)
and individual basis or (ii) through more
organised collective groups and
associations.
More formal institutions charged with delivering services on
a paid or statutory basis

7. Community Self-help Focuses on: People (and empowered
relations with others) Identities
The local
The Real Negotiated
space
 Community self-help is the basis upon which
communities survive, thrive and evolve
 The moral foundations of society are built upon
reciprocity
 The dependency culture is corrosive of society
 The state as a welfare provider is in crisis
Burns et al (2004: 6)
Community engagement is a The 'Natural',
The Known,
common coping strategy to achieve 'The Instinctive'
the Familiar
material, social and emotional ends

8. More desired/ mature
Formal community
participatory culture of
engagement
engagement
"Few people go straight...(into) active
engagement with their neighbourhood...
Most are on a ladder of involvement, with
simple acts of good neighbourliness at
one end and a regular commitment with a
formal or voluntary organisation...at the
other. (Home Office, 1999: 30)
One-to-one reciprocity represents
Informal community engagement
inferior/ immature/ undeveloped
cultures of engagement

9. Recognising the complex multi-
layered 'reality' of the types of
community engagement
Acknowledging how participatory
cultures vary spatially
Illustrating how "mainstream" and
"alternative" forms of engagement do
not occupy discrete realms

10. Typology of forms of community engagement in the total social
organisation of labour (TSOL) PAID
1. Formal paid job 2. Informal 3. Paid community 4. Paid household/
in public, private or employment exchanges family work
voluntary sector e.g., wholly e.g., paid favours for e.g., paid exchanges
e.g., formal job in undeclared waged friends, neighbours within the family
voluntary employment; under- & acquaintances
organisation declared formal
employment (e.g.,
undeclared INFORMAL
FORMAL overtime); informal
self-employment
5. Formal unpaid 6. Informal unpaid 7. One-to-one 8. Unpaid domestic
work in public, work in public, unpaid community work
private & voluntary private & voluntary exchanges
sector sector e.g., self-
e.g., unpaid kinship provisioning of care
e.g., unpaid work in e.g., unpaid exchange, within household
formal community- children’s soccer neighbourly favour
based group; unpaid coach without formal
internship police check
UNPAID

11. English Localities Survey (861
face-to face interviews, 1988-
2001, rural & urban, deprived &
affluent, 44 tasks investigated)
 Complex, multi-layered interpretations begin to emerge
 Unpaid community engagement higher in affluent areas
 Informal community engagement more popular in deprived areas
 Formal groups rarely figure in material coping practices
Deprived localities engage more in:
 Informal unpaid activity (e.g. caring for groups of children on an unregistered
basis)
 Paid favours for kin, friends, neighbours and acquaintances
 "Illegitimate" forms of community engagement
Vast majority of literature on the voluntary and community sectors has
concentrated almost exclusively on unpaid and legitimate forms of community
engagement. Obvious policy implications arise from this…

12.  Rethinking community engagement as a spectrum of types
 In deprived neighbourhoods there is a need to :
 Nurture one-to-one aid
 Legitimise those who are engaged in remunerated forms
of community involvement (i.e. tally system needed when
people conduct favours for each other)
 Local Exchange and Trading Schemes (LETS)
 Time Banks

13.  There is a great need to recognise how popular binary
representations & conceptual frameworks are fundamental in:
 Framing, de-legitimising and limiting debate and discussion
 Overlooking the complex realities of our contemporary economic spaces and
 Closing-down the possibility of imagining and harnessing other complex
economic futures
 In two important ways TSOL acts as a welcome
and significant:
• Movement away from the stable/ bounded binary
hierarchical debates
• Theoretical and policy-making framework for re-thinking
the 'spaces' which we can constructively target for de-
growth as well as providing welcome signs of a significant

14.  Fournier, V., 2008. Escaping form the economy: the politics of degrowth. International Journal
of Sociology and Social Policy, 28, 11/12, pp 528-545
 Gibson-Graham, J. K. (2006) A diverse economy: rethinking economy and economic
representation (available at
http://www.communityeconomies.org/papers/rethink/rethink7diverse.pdf last accessed
12.03.10)
 Glucksmann, M., 2005. Shifting boundaries and interconnections: extending the "total social
organisation of labour", The Sociological Review, 52, 2, pp. 19-36.
 White, R.J. 2009. Explaining why the non-commodified sphere of mutual aid is so pervasive
in the advanced economies: some case study evidence from an English City.
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 29., Nos. 9/10, pp. 457-472
 Williams, C.C., 2009. Unravelling cultures of community engagement: a geographically-
nuanced approach, paper presented to the ESRC-funded seminar Re-mixing the
economy of welfare: what is emerging beyond the market and state?, Nottingham Trent
University, 11th November 2009
 Williams, C.C. 2004. A Commodified World? Mapping the limits of capitalism, London: Zed
 Williams, C.C. Round, J. and Rogers, P., 2007. Beyond the formal/ informal economy binary
hierarchy, The International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 402-
414

15. Colin C Williams
Professor of Public Policy
School of Management
University of Sheffield
E-mail: C.C.Williams@sheffield.ac.uk
Richard J White
Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography
Sheffield Hallam University
E-mail: Richard.white@shu.ac.uk