About
This is an informal description of the thinking behind the first subsistence marketplaces bottom-up immersion conference. We invite you to
read and consider participating in this unique, one-of-a-kind forum.
How to Apply
First, complete a simple form that asks the following:
· An
overview of your interests (research, education, social enterprise, business, government, other) as they relate to subsistence marketplaces.
· An
outline of how your topic enhances understanding of and well-being in subsistence marketplaces.
· A
description of how/why immersive experiences will help you develop deeper insights into your topic of interest.
· Your
prior experiences in subsistence marketplaces (if any). Note that prior experience in this area is not a requirement.
In addition to indicating your intention to participate, we will need you to complete a separate registration form to process
your payment for the conference. Both forms can be found on the conference website.
Conference Description
The stream of subsistence marketplaces has pioneered a unique, bottom-up approach to research, education, and practice
at the intersection of poverty and marketplaces. Building on six conferences in the last decade and accompanying publications, we now initiate the first immersion conference on subsistence marketplaces. True to the bottom-up approach that characterizes subsistence
marketplaces research, this new series of conferences is envisioned to take place in different continents over time, thus providing an opportunity for researchers, educators, practitioners, and students to engage directly with urban and rural subsistence marketplaces,
through conversations and observations.
During the first immersion conference, organizers will enable field visits to explore urban, semi-urban, and rural subsistence
communities near Chennai and Delhi. We envision submissions in the form of a statement of interests in the realm of subsistence marketplaces, that would then be discussed and explored through field visits during the conference. The organizers will work with
participants to accommodate special requests to maximize immersive learning opportunities. The conference will also feature professional development workshops for junior scholars and doctoral students. The two distinct parts of the schedule, based on geographic
locations, will allow for some flexibility to accommodate constraints. Details will be developed over time and the description above is tentative and subject to changes based on responses from potential participants.
We look forward to hosting you during this unique immersive conference.
Background Information
For more than a decade, the Subsistence Marketplaces Conference Series has been a leading biennial forum for evolving and
sharing research, education, and fostering best practices for social and commercial enterprises in subsistence marketplace communities.
Scholars and practitioners around the world have participated in these forums through conferences, publications, and educational
initiatives, beginning with the first Subsistence Marketplaces Conference in 2006. Research by this community has appeared in a variety of outlets, sustained through a series of special issues/sections in academic journals (with more than 50 articles in conference-related
special publications and many more in other outlets).
Since its origin, subsistence marketplace research has accumulated a substantial body of knowledge paralleling other approaches
to poverty, such as the capabilities approach and base-of-the-pyramid research, providing unique and complementary insights.
The term “subsistence marketplaces” was deliberately coined to reflect the need to study these marketplaces across resource
and literacy barriers in their own right, beyond being new markets for companies. Business and exchange happens in many different ways across the world. Such exchanges are worthy of study from the inside out as well as the outside in. The term “marketplaces”
denotes this focus and emphasizes the need to understand preexisting marketplaces before designing or presuming solutions.
More information on the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative can be found at https://www.business.illinois.edu/subsistence/.
(217) 333-4550 | [log in to unmask]
Roland Gau, University of Texas, El Paso
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Jayshree Suresh, Hand in Hand Academy
for Social Entrepreneurship