ABSTRACT
Alternative approaches to local economic development are increasingly being employed as regeneration strategies for depleted communities, i.e. places that have suffered from a decline of traditional economic activities upon which local people have depended for their incomes (Shragge and Fontan 2000; Leyshon, Lee and Williams 2003; Johnstone and Lionais 2004). Among the multiple approaches to developing alternative local economies (i.e., alterity), social enterprises have been proposed as an engine of growth for the social economy (Harding 2004). Yet social enterprises are problematic in that they are expected to respond to social needs and be self-sufficient. Growth and sustainability conflict with meeting social needs and social empowerment (Amin, Cameron and Hudson 2003). This might be due to conflicting conceptualisations of the social within social enterprises. The ‘social’ in social enterprise is often an attribution of the outputs of production; however, there are other ways to be social. This chapter looks at place-based business as an alternative approach to social enterprise.
