Community-based enterprises and the commons: The case of San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro, Mexico

Abstract

What can we learn from an engagement between communitybased and indigenous enterprise, and commons literatures? That is what we set out to consider in this paper. Commons literature has tended to focus on the administration and use of the commons by individuals and households and less so on collective enterprises that extract, transform and market what they harvest from the commons. In the commons literature it has been cases of community forestry from Mexico which initiated an interest in understanding the linkages between commons and enterprises.In this paper, we consider a well known case in the community forestry and commons literature from Mexico. It provides an interesting case as the indigenous members that hold the rights for the commons are also the members of the enterprise that transforms and markets goods from the commons. We argue that the impetus for such a strategy is one way to confront internal and external pressures on a commons.We draw upon the transcripts of 40 interviews undertaken during 2006 which are analyzed using a framework developed from the social, community-based and indigenous enterprise literature. The framework we developed by reviewing this literature was used to understand what was known regarding the factors that increased chances of success for community enterprises. Our goal was to utilize this framework to analyze the San Juan Forest Enterprise and understand its emergence and formation as a long-standing community-based enterprise that intersects with a commons. In analyzing interview transcripts would we find that people involved in the enterprise reflected what enterprise scholars had found Community-based enterprises and the commons to be conditions that increased the chances of success of community-based enterprises?We found that by starting from the enterprise literature it was possible to consider the enterprise from the perspective of a regulatory framework rather than the poles of dependency and modernization theories in which much commons work has been based. Enterprise and commons intersect when both are guided by core cultural values and the enterprise can become a new site for the creation of social and cultural cohesion. We also found that there were a number of necessary conditions for commons-based community-enterprises to retain internal and external legitimacy, namely: (1) leadership representative of the broad social mission rooted in the customary institutions, values and norms of the community; (2) accountability of enterprise leaders to the memberships they represent; and (3) a close adherence to the political goals of the community as a whole.We conclude by noting that in the Americas there is a steady increase in the lands and waters being managed by Indigenous Peoples. An engagement between commons and community-based enterprise scholars could provide needed support for the emergence of community-based enterprises that sustainably manage commons and provide the means to relieve systemic poverty of indigenous communities.

Cooperative, Social Enterprise, and Community-Based Enterprise: Competing, Substituting, or Complementing?

“…San-Juan-CBE (Mexico) views the forest as a common good which should benefit all community members and therefore, it aims to generate social development through the appropriation of the forest's economic value (Orozco-Quintero & Davidson-Hunt, 2010). Meanwhile, Ugandan CBEs benefit only the enterprise's members (FAO, 2005).…”

“…Some CBEs can independently live for years, and yet some others cannot survive without outsiders' interventions. San-Juan-CBE is profitable and survives for 28 years (Orozco-Quintero & Davidson-Hunt, 2010), whereas a Botswanan CBE, after 16 years, reaches a break-even-point only after receiving grants from donor agencies (Stone & Stone, 2011).…”

“…Furthermore, the community representation varies from only local leaders/elite-groups, involving some ordinary community members, to participation by the all/majority of community members. The formal and real authority of Mexican CBEs are at the hand of the communities themselves -the formal at the hand of the general assembly, while the real authority is delegated to selected representative of all communities (Fonseca, 2007;Orozco-Quintero & Davidson-Hunt, 2010). In Karnataka, the decision of establishing the enterprise and the decision regarding managerial and operational options are decided by the community (only by local leader/elite-groups) and local NGO (Handy et al, 2011).…”

“…This form emerges as a counter-action against or an alternative approach of the lack successful paternalistic approach, which is often implemented to handle communal problems, such as environmental and poverty problems, in developing countries. CBE has been increasingly acknowledged to be a sustainable way to maintain communities' autonomy (Orozco-Quintero & Davidson-Hunt, 2010) and robust to economic/political changes (Handy, Cnaan, Bhat, & Meijs,Some authors have attempted to build a conceptual framework of CBE. The work of Peredo and Chrisman (2006) -"Toward a theory of community-based enterprise" -is perhaps one of the most frequently cited literatures regarding this topic.…”

Toward a Sustainable Community-based Enterprise: Organizational Architecture and Performance

“…However, past experiences showed a lack of success of such a paternalistic approach (Mappatoba, 2004) due to community's over-reliance on continuous external supports and community's low survivability after the phasing-out of intervention programs. During the last three decades, community-based enterprise (CBE) has been increasingly acknowledged as a sustainable way to maintain autonomy of rural and indigenous communities (Orozco-Quintero & Davidson-Hunt, 2010). As an example, a successful CBE in India, producing and selling jasmine flowers, has helped to alleviate a whole region (about 6 villages or 6000 households) from extreme poverty and it has proved itself robust to recessions and political changes (Handy, Cnaan, Bhat, & Meijs, 2011).…”