Twenty-third International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

The paper discusses how community-based enterprises as place-based organizations serve as ‘trust intermediaries’ that help rural communities by expanding and diversifying the community’s supporting network. With the collapse of the cod fishery in the 1990s, Newfoundland and Labrador is experiencing a massive wave of economic decline. The notion of “home”, our research found, is a paradoxical narrative for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians as it denotes identity but also a reminder of the economic disruption. This could lead to a sense of exclusive solidarity and suspicion of suggestions brought from outside. Recently, the provincial government has been campaigning to revive the sub-provincial regional-based development agenda to consolidate communities’ resources. Some challenges in ensuring such effort are trust and solidarity building. There is a deep distrust of the government, policymakers, and other ‘outsiders’ who, in their view, are often making detrimental decisions for rural communities. This paper examines how community-based social enterprises can operate as an intermediary to partake in the trust’s “translation” process (Latour) and strengthen the negotiation from the periphery (Ong). Social enterprises actively recruit volunteers from various backgrounds, such as artists, farmers, and community activists. These pools of actors increase diversity in the organization’s membership resulting in more diverse activities and social missions. They could also expand the organization’s support network to tackle the asymmetric decision-making power between rural communities and policymakers. Such practice is not without risk; while ‘community’ is often imagined as an ideal model of cohabitation and cooperation, the observed communities worked better with companization.