Community economies of wellbeing: how social enterprises contribute to ‘surviving well together’

This chapter explores how social enterprises contribute to a community economy of wellbeing. A key strategy for community economies scholarship is to broaden the foundations of what is commonly understood as core to economic relations. In a historical moment in which capitalist enterprise, financial exchange and wage labour continue to be considered the foundations of global economies, this area of study focuses on the diverse forms of enterprise, exchange, and labour that are key to sustaining our communities. In particular, community economies scholarship focuses critical attention on forms of economic activity that have the potential to not just enable households and communities to survive, but those that enable us to survive well. Our analysis operationalises and expands a community economy framework for surviving well which sees it made up of the need to balance different types of wellbeing: material, occupational, social, community, physical and psychological (based on Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy 2013). Based on the perspectives and experiences of those working within four case study enterprises and their clients, the chapter explores the ways in which the creation of multiple forms of wellbeing form part of day to day working life within the organisations. Our discussion highlights how wellbeing might be more purposefully foregrounded in organizational purpose and practice.