ABSTRACT
In the 1990s, a radical shift took place within the poverty reduction policies advocating a market-based approach to inclusive growth for the poor. This change entailed shifting focus from access to formal labour-markets to access to formal commercial-markets, thus requiring the poor to generate self-inclusion by selling their goods and services in formal markets and bringing the topic of market agency (i.e. the ability to act in markets) to the forefront of efforts to tackle poverty. Unfortunately, current policies have not yielded the expected results. The chapter questions the rationale underpinning the institutional literature belief that transitioning between informal and formal markets is an issue of learning a new game with a different set of rules. Moreover, it reassesses the problem – from a transition-problem to an access-problem – and argues that it is necessary to develop a novel stream of research exploring this asymmetric (informal/formal) exchange situation. The chapter adopts a holistic approach. Specifically, at the micro-level, it provides a novel characterization of informal sellers and draws on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capitals (economic, social, and cultural), and capital conversion to suggest a complete rethink of the market access problem as a multi-capital market agency conceptualization. At the macro-level, it advocates the need for a commercial partner that helps democratize informal sellers’ access to formal markets.
multi-capital market agency, informal sellers, social inclusion, poverty alleviation, bottom-up policies, Bourdieu, asymmetric exchange situations
