striving to make capital do

7/31/2019 Striving to Make Capital Do

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Striving to make capital do economic things for the impoverished:

On the issue of capitalization in rural microenterprises

Magdalena Villarreal

Published in: Kontinen Tiina (ed) (2004)Development Intervention:

Actor and Activity Perspectives. University of Helsinki. Finlandpp. 67 to 81.

Following the concern to transcend social compensation strategies, charity and welfare, it has

now become commonplace for development planners to set part of their goals on the

establishment of small enterprises in the hands of the poor. Microenterprises constitute

appealing mechanisms for poverty alleviation, allowing low- income producers, manufacturers

and merchants to involve themselves actively in seeking ways out of their precarious situation.

The underlying assumption is that, with the provision of seed capital, the poor can be

introduced into the market. Well nurtured, the enterprise will expand, capital will grow, and

the poor will be able to pull themselves out of poverty. Capital is expected to multiply itself

and produce profit.

But many small enterprises do not survive more than a couple of years and most fail to expand.

The seed resources that are injected are often diverted, disappear into everyday

consumption, or are turned into what Hernando de Soto (2000) labels dead capital, which he

claims is unable to do economic things for the impoverished.

In this chapter, my aim is to explore the nature of these economic things that capital is

expected to trigger. This requires a critical unpacking of the notion of capital itself and looking

into the different kinds of assets and resources that are involved in microentrepreneurial

activity. I will draw upon the cases of individual, family and group resources such as pigs,

chickens, bees and cows to discuss the nature of capital in the everyday operation of micro-

enterprises as poverty alleviation measures in Western Mexico, exploring transactions within

different types of markets that include money markets for development projects and

commodity markets.


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This inevitably takes us to the analysis of processes of valuation that are brought into play in

these contexts. It is important to consider the complex webs of meanings and actions that are

activated in the calculation of value, as well as the ways in which those involved interact with

money and other resources. I have thus resorted to an actor- oriented approach, which allows

us to take situated actors practices and transactions as the main focus. It is with reference to

these actions that resources be they land, labour, knowledge or cash acquire value. I

contend that a specific resource monetary or non- monetary can only become capital when

it is mobilized and leveraged within particular circuits of signification where its value is

assessed and negotiated according to particular standards, rules and expectations. This has

important implications to the issues of poverty and capitalization.

The Mystery of Capital

I will start with Hernando De Sotos depiction of capital, since his points of view seem to be

shared by many development agents and have been acclaimed by some governments

including the Mexican one as providing the key to poverty alleviation. In his bookThe

mystery of capital, he claims that a large percentage of the poor already posses the assets they

need to make a success of capitalism. Based on a 5 year study with a team of 100 researchers

from six different nations, he concludes that, at the end of the millennium, the value of savings

among the poor was forty times all the foreign aid received throughout the world since 1945

(2000: 5).

And, according to his teams calculations, the total value of the real estate held but not legally

owned by the poor of the Third World and former communist nations was at least 9.3 trillion

dollars. That is, ninety- three times as much as all development assistance from all advanced

countries to the Third World in the past three decades! (2000: 35). However, he says, they

hold these resources in defective forms they are dead capital. Because the poors economic

and social assets are not fixed in a formal property system that can homogenize their qualities

and values in such a way that they are broadly recognizable, they are extremely hard to move

in the market and cannot be used as collateral to start enterprises. He concludes that in order to

make their assets do economic things for them, these must be represented in a title, a


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contract and other similar legal documents, which will allow them to be combined, divided,

mobilized and used in commercial transactions. In this way the poor will be able to convert

dead capital into an active one that is widely transferable and fungible.

And here he has a point. Those identified as poor hold or have access to a host of resources

that are not activated within capitalist circuits of profit making. Not only do many

impoverished sectors of the world population own houses and urban plots, but they possess

agricultural land and have access to mineral resources and forests. They also have skills,

knowledge, networks, and rich cultural heritages that could become valuable assets in

economic transactions. However, the fact that these are not gainfully articulated with

commodity or financial markets has less to do with a lack of proper titles or legal documents to

prove legitimate property than with the social relations involved in capitalization, particularly

the processes of valuation, including assessments of people that is, the identity attributed to

property owners and dealers themselves.

It would appear that De Soto recognizes some of these forms of valuation and assessment as

central, since his arguments are based on the postulation that active capital is mobilized on

the basis of formal representations of a good that do not represent the good itself, but our

concept of it, the economic qualities we attribute to it in order to produce value. Hence, the

mystery of capital has to do with human actors depictions of an asset or good.

It is suprising, then, that he should turn a blind eye to the power laden contexts in which

negotiations over the concepts and values attributed to particular goods is made. He reduces

the problem of poverty to bureaucratic procedures and legal documents that can guarantee

private property which will easily perform in a free market. The myth of a free market has

been strongly challenged by social scientists, who stress the forms of exclusion that prevail.

The market is discriminatory and excluding. De Soto overlooks the fact that those he labels

poor already participate actively in the market, albeit in highly disadvantaged ways.

Claims to possession must, of course, be backed by trustworthy institututions, but which

institutions are to be considered dependable and how the rules of the game are established


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cannot be ignored. It is important to take into account the fact that, in seeking to influence the

processes of valuation and representation of goods, entrepreneurs draw upon stereotyped

notions of the identity different players involved in order to exclude or out-compete their

rivals. Thus social relations, power and human interpretation play big roles in the democratic

process of supply and demand.

On the other hand, in De Sotos conceptualization, the big market operates in one universal

language: money. Money is the measure of equivalence, the universal language that everyone

can understand. In profitable economic processes, according to his reasoning, the differential

value that buyer and seller might attribute to a particular good is irrelevant, as long as they

agree on a fixed price. The calculations as to what a fair price would amount to are settled in a

democratic way: supply and demand. If I desperately need a roof over my head, I will pay

the price you ask for your house. Why you are asking such a price is irrelevant, as long as there

is someone who is willing to pay. And you are more likely to get the price you want if you

have a legal document, which gives me security, since it guarantees that you will not sell it

twice or take it away from me in two months. Economic qualities include, of course, non-

monetary resources that are difficult to measure such such as security and status. What I am

buying is not so much a building, but the security of having a permanent roof over my head,

perhaps status, or I might be considering it an investment for the future. But for De Soto, this

is not an issue, since what counts in the big market is the agreed upon value established in

monetary terms between those involved in the transaction.

However, the agreed upon value is an issue, particularly since it implies differential costs for

those concerned. The freedom you acquired by selling or mortgaging your house and thus

being able to invest elsewhere is conditioned by the degree to which you are able to forego the

security of a roof, what this entails for your family, how much you gain or lose in terms of

social relations, etc. Here political, ethical and cognitive dimensions come to the fore, and as

Long (1984, 2001) argues, these do not depend on, nor can they be reduced to, market

rationalities.

The issue of value from an actor- oriented perspective


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From an actor oriented perspective, one has to consider the multiple realities that are

constructed and confirmed in peoples everyday lives. Long has, for some time, been pointing

out the mistake of giving analytical priority to the capitalist side of the equation in economic

transactions, thus failing to appreciate the theoretical importance of non- commoditised

relationships (1977, 1984, 2001). This has two important implications:

On the one hand, it warns against the reduction of peoples livelihoods to the pursuit of

economic goals, particularly those related to their involvement in a capitalist economy (Arce

2003, Long and Villarreal 1998, 2001). The extended use of economic metaphors to address

livelihood issues tends to obcure the complexity of issues entailed. Individuals, families, social

groups, institutions and communities are involved in a range of activities including, for

example, entertainment and building relationships which cannot be packaged into market

concerns. As Wallman (1982) writes: Livelihood is never just a matter of finding or making

shelter, transacting money, getting food to put on the family table or to exchange on the market

place. It is equally a matter of ownership and circulation of information, the management of

skills and relationships, and the affirmation of personal significance [involving issues of self-

esteem] and group identity. The tasks of meeting obligations, of security, identity and status,

and organising time are as crucial to livelihood as bread and shelter. Such relationships my or

may not affect, or be affected by, economic activity, and one cannot attribute them market

value a priori.

On the other hand, it calls for the need to consider a wide array of values and institutions

involved in market interaction, including social and cultural concerns and patterns of

interdependencies between the needs, interests and values of particular groups of individuals.

Political issues, welfare considerations and ethical matters are often brought into what appear

to be purely economic or financial criteria. Transactions in commodity and other markets are

sustained by values and non-commodity relations that vary according to the field of activity

and the interests that are played out (Long and Villarreal 1998, 2001, Hutchinson 1996, de

Haan 1994, Arce and Marsden 1993 and Arce 1997). They must be viewed as the outcome of

the series of interlocking encounters and relationships that take place between the various

exchange actors who endeavour to defend and reproduce their own enterprises, livelihoods,


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and cultural repertoires (Long and Villarreal 2001). Therefore, in exploring the issue of capital

in microenterprises, a crucial concern is how assets are weighed and measured and how their

perceived virtues and attributes are made relevant in the context of economic transactions and

their evaluation. One cannot assume that exchange value is determined by the utility value of

buyers and consumers. (Long 2001).

Irene Tinker (1995) points out that women entrepreneurs work within the frame of a human

economy which addresses social, cultural and familial angles of peoples livelihoods, and that

these dimensions are not considered in contemporary paradigms used in the evaluation of

microenterprises. Her point is well taken, but it would be misleading to categorize womens

work a priori as pertaining to a different economy, which can take us to separating off

analytically the world of the poor and marginalized from the world of the wealthy and

dominant with its consequent mystification. We have to consider the ways in which a

capitalist economy inhabits and survives on human and social resources and categories as well

as financial ones. And financial concerns have by now become very important for the social

groups involved in development enterprises.

To be sure, human dimensions are taken into account in the now trendy notion of social

capital, which is used to address social resources that yield benefits such as improved material

conditions, increased income and social status. This is not difficult to conceptualize in todays

world, where everyday parlance strongly incorporates economic markers to address growth

and investment in human, intellectual and organizational resources, not only within

businesses and coroporations, but also in universities, governments, and social clubs. Notions

of social, environmental and cultural capital have eagerly been taken up in the development

scenario, where projects and enterprises depend on the good will of donors and other stake

holders who are keen to measure the cost- benefit ratio of their investments.

To think of social, environmental, kin, friendship and other resources as capital is to recognize

their potential to produce profit in terms that can in some way be made equivalent to financial

gain. But the relevant issue is how such equivalences are defined, weighed and attributed

value. As De Soto contends, our conceptualization of their economic qualities (or the


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conceptualization we are able to impose on others) is crucial, because such resources need to

be mobilized and leveraged. However, one has to take into account that this can only be done

within fields where their value is acknowledged and can be negotiated in accordance to

recognized standards, rules and expectations.

Here, money does not always function as the standard measure of exchange value. Differential

profits are assessed by reference to a combination of what we prefer to call social currencies

whose value is gauged within particular fields of signification. Social currencies refer us to

different frameworks of calculation that co-exist and interrelate in the definition of value

equivalences. This allows us to analyze the ongoing struggles and negotiations over value

between different sets of actors involved. In such processes one finds that similar monetary

denominations can be valued differently, and dissimilar ones might be judged equivalent. 1

In what follows, I aim to identify the processes that come into play in the attribution of value

to resources of peasant women in Western Mexico such that they are converted or not into

active capital in the framework of social policies and processes of planned intervention.

Seed capital

The women that formed part of a beekeeping group in a small town of Western Mexico were

not the poorest in the community, although their family income was then on or slightly

below what would be considered the poverty line. The government programme offered the

group seed money to establish an enterprise, following federal stipulations that rural women

should be provided the opportunity to become entrepreneurs. They had been invited to join by

the local authority, and accepted, although most would have preferred to stay at home and look

after their children and husbands, or carry out small income earning jobs they engaged in, such

as sewing, peddling Avon and Tupperware, or cooking meals to sell in the evening.

They attended their monthly meetings smelling of soap and shampoo, wearing clean, ironed

dresses, and at times jeans, but their situation was by no means ideal. Their husbands, a

number of whom possessed land, worked in the fields all day and their income was never quite

1 Long and Villarreal 1998, 2001


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enough to cover all their basic needs, including sending their children to school, clothing them,

covering transportation costs, etc. None had bank accounts and only two had reached

secondary schooling, although all but one could read and write.

Regional officers were particularly interested in the consolidation of this group. Their reports

needed to show gender related activities. Many such groups had been formed in the country, a

number of which included women in less advantageous conditions, but most of these groups

dissolved, since the members needed to work for a daily wage. And obtaining profit, or at least

payment for their work was, in the best of cases, only possible after a couple of years when the

enterprise took off.

But Socorro, one of the eldest members of the beekeeping group, laughingly narrated her

groups decision to choose honey production

... the woman officer asked us whether we wanted chickens, or pigs or goats, or a sewing

group. We said bees because we thought we could just leave them and they would work on

their own. All we had to do was harvest the honey! Sewing? No, the material is too expensive,

and then we would have to go out and sell garments. Chickens, we would have to work hard

every day, and if the price of the feed went up, we would go down. Goats would have been

nice, then maybe we could have divided them up between ourselves, instead of having to work

as a group, but no, goats are very destructive, they jump fences and get into the men's fields,

and we didnt want problems with them. So we chose bees, but now we regret it, because we

constantly get stung!

The group had been prompted to select an economic activity and join the credit scheme. They

had weighed their options carefully, considering the implications of their decision for

themselves in their relations to their families and the community. They wanted a money-

earning enterprise, but did not want to jeopardize the time they needed to spend on family

commitments, nor did they want to trigger conflicts with other people in the village.


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For the government officers involved, as is the case with many development workers around

the world, it did not matter too much whether the women chose bees, chickens or goats. In

encouraging them to engage in economic activities, their aims were to help the women help

themselves out of poverty, providing the seeds for what should become a sound economic

enterprise. Pigs, chickens, cows or goats were generally classified in a standardized way as

initial capital, as resources that would reproduce themselves with a bit of enthusiasm and

hard work. Their value resided in their potential for rendering incremental monetary benefits.

However, this was an inaccuracy that could have serious economic and social consequences.

While the prices of inputs entailed, the amount of work involved and the possible price they

would acquire in the market were definitely crucial, value was not only measured in monetary

terms. The makeup of capital associated with chickens was different from that of cows, bees or

goats.

Cows, chickens and piggy- banks

I expect we will all agree that it is better for rural women to own cows than to simply have

chickens, but I was truly disappointed when, during an evaluation- for- planning meeting with

government officers in the region, one of the local leaders proudly stated that a large

percentage of the (largely male) groups in his municipality had dutifully paid the loans they

had acquired to buy cattle some of them ahead of time, even if it had meant that they sold

their wives chickens to raise the money! His statement was applauded by all of those present

except for myself.

Paying loans in time was assessed as an achievement, considering that many of the producers

involved had come to lag in their reimbursements to previous government loans. It was

generally accepted that this had to do with a lack of financial culture among the rural

population. They had become used to receiving charitable funds and they needed to enhance

their entrepreneurial skills and operate in the real world meaning learning to work for the

market and paying for money at market value.


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While I agreed that producers must pay their loans, I could not accept the fact that this should

be done with womens chickens. Having worked in that region for an extended period of time,

I knew that chickens were an important element in sustaining the livelihoods of rural families.

Eggs and poultry were one of the most important sources of protein and were also crucial in

sustaining social relations. It was generally embarrassing for a Mexican family to have no food

to offer visiting relatives, and a fried egg was often the solution. Moreover, poultry were

resources in the womens domain. They generally decided when to slaughter or sell a chicken

and which one to get rid of: whether it was a particular hen that no longer laid eggs or one

that was not good for looking after her chicks and also decided on the destiny of the money

obtained. And eggs were borrowed and sold between neighbours, thus strengthening social

links and feelings of solidarity.

In turn, cows tended to be thrust into the mens domain. Although women might have them

registered to their name, and might even look after them, taking them out to graze and bringing

them home in the evening, milking them, and curing their illnesses, they would most often

consult their husbands, sons or male relatives before selling a calf. And if no other urgent need

was at stake, men would be allowed a degree of freedom as to how to spend the money. At

times this could mean investing in a vehicle, paying for a son or daughters schooling, fixing

the house, or going off to drink with friends. They could also be slaughtered for a special

occasion this would be a demonstration of status for the family. Too often, however, calves

were sold before they had the desirable weight in order to pay hospital fees, medicine, or a

debt.

On the other hand, pigs were the common stereotype for saving. Like in many places around

the world, small money- boxes have been modeled on pigs. Piggy banks symbolized the ways

in which families saved pesos until they became a significant amount of hard currency.

Rural families frequently raised pigs on scraps of leftover food, weeds and, if possible, maize,

and, when full grown, would either slaughter the hog to keep the lard thus saving money in

the near future, since they would not have to buy it ate and shared part of the meat with

friends and neighbours and sold meat and crackling. Or they would sell the hogs to pay debts,

acquire a piece of furniture or cover other important expenses.


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While chickens were generally classified as short- term capital, pigs tended to be placed in the

category of mid- term. They provided a small savings account, a security set aside for relevant

expenditure. However, unless a family possessed a pig or chicken farm, they were not

considered capitalized. It was generally expected that the proceeds from small numbers of

chickens and hogs would go down the drain of daily consumption. They might provide

better standards of living, but would rarely constitute sound capital.

This was not the case of cattle, which, in Mexico, have almost constituted a synonym for

wealth. If we dont have a cow or two to our name said a farmer I feel dispossessed, as

if we have nothing. Cattle were a longer- term security as well as an investment that could

render more profits. While male calves could be sold to cover expenses, a family would aim at

using the profits gained to buy more cattle, particularly female calves, which were set aside for

reproduction. This was capital that would multiply and expand.

But the mechanisms of operation some of these cattle raising enterprises engaged in did not

differ markedly from that of piggy banks since funds were slowly and painfully saved to

increase the kitty except that this kitty was larger and it provided more status. And it

tended to be tighter. While the tendency with hogs was to break the piggy bank within a

medium term to use the funds in one way or another, cattle in these more traditional

enterprises was a money box that was only opened for big occasions or urgent needs. Quite

frequently, families would forgo daily consumption needs in order to maintain their cows.

More than a few women complained that all they obtained from their herds of cattle was the

milk they manage to salvage if the cows grazed near the village and perhaps some cheese they

themselves fabricated on the milk that was not sold. But their children went without shoes and

they hardly ever tasted the meat, since their husbands one aim was to increase the herd. This

was understandable, since a large herd could provide the basis for power and authority in the

local scenario, which was quite attractive for someone who resented having always been under

someone elses foot.


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Although capital invested in cattle could be fungible owners did sometimes sell cows to buy

vehicles or invest in building their homes, and the status cattle owners acquired was useful to

access credit in local shops as well as larger institutions such as banks this was not quite the

fungibility required in todays entrepreneurial scenarios, where the flexibility to move quickly

between one product and the other, to translate one kind of capital to another, is the key to

success. In this sense, their cattle was to a large degree dead capital to use De Sotos (2000)

way of describing many of the resources possessed by the poor.

What I am trying to say is not that development programmes should be oriented to chickens

rather than cows, but that they constitute different forms of capital, they move within different

circuits and render differential benefits. The economic things they are expected to produce

include social, cultural and symbolic benefits.

Local currencies

A range of social values were intertwined with, and to a degree determined, the monetary

value that was accorded to a particular good. Hence, 50 pesos earned from a chicken, which

were esteemed high, were not the same as 50 pesos that were extracted from the sale of a cow.

One was considered a large chunk of petty money, to be used for food and basic

consumption, and the other, a small fringe of big money, perhaps a leftover after covering

important payments which could be destined why not? to give the money holder a small

break, a bit of pampering to compensate for hard work and sacrifices.

There were, to be sure, several categories to be taken into account in the case of cows and

chickens. Milk from cows was frequently stashed for daily expenses. Squandering milk money

on drink could be judged severely, while the sale of a calf could be set aside for partying. This

was most clearly the case with the profits from special breeds of chickens, such as fighting

cocks. Fighting cocks were a gamble, a lottery ticket which, when won, was worth a

celebration. And these were classified within mens domain. Although women were frequently

expected to feed and look after them, they would rarely include the proceeds these might

generate as part of the family income.


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It was not at all infrequent to hear peasant women complaining about having to tend fighting

cocks or look after cattle, yet they continued doing it. Such submissiveness, however, was not

always straight- forward subordination. Keeping a husband happy and looking after his

interests could, in certain contexts, render social profits in terms of consolidation of kin

networks and solidarity grids. It could entail a form of social collateral, safeguarding the mans

honor and dignity, which in turn produced status for the family, which was useful in procuring

loans, keeping clients, and receiving gifts, for example. Having a husband was itself important

for the upkeep of social networks and status. It was generally signified as security for the

family, the woman could increase her solidarity networks and there was a degree to which it

made the woman less vulnerable to malicious gossip. Thus social links including marital and

kin relationships were an important asset.

But although assets (be they social, cultural or financial) might generate added worth, they

could also reduce it. For example, money coming from a person linked to a family associated

to withcraft tainted the reputation of the bearer; having social connections to drug traffickers

aroused fear in some groups, and womens submissiveness to their husbands was not

considered a positive trait within development enterprises. This, of course, had to do with

differential currencies in processes of valuation.

Economic things

Socorro stated that, as a group, they would have liked to raise goats. Goats do not require a

great deal of attention, they feed on practically anything grass from the hillside, leaves and

bushes. They could be easily divided among the members of the group, each of whom could

use child labour to look after them. Also, goats reproduce quickly, and goat meat is highly

valued in the region, so they could obtain good profits. But goats are problematic because they

generate conflicts with farmers. They jump fences quite easily, and gobble valuable crops.

In local currencies, the social price of raising goats was too high for the women to take a risk.

Their links with much needed solidarity networks would be at stake, as would their political

space in terms of relations with local authorities. They would likely have problems with their


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own husbands, who had their crops in the adjacent fields, and who would not want to have

their women involved in conflicts.

In settling on bees, however, the women also had to consider local currencies. With the arrival

of the so called African bee, which was much more aggressive, they were forced to move

their apiaries to distant places so as to not risk the possibility that the bees attack farmers or

farm animals. But more than that, honey from bees is largely considered an act of providence.

It depends on whether and how wild flowers blossom, whether it rains and whether not too

many predators such as ants and toads reproduce. And if it is an act of providence, they

must be thankful and show it with generosity to neighbours and friends. Hence, the women

gave away jars of honey and pieces of honeycomb to government officers, local authorities,

kin and fellow citizens at least in the initial stages. When in later seasons the produce was

not so good, more than a few blamed it on the womens greed and lack of generosity.

In this case, as in many other development projects, other values should also be taken into

account. Government officers expected the women to develop organizational skills and gender

consciousness. It was hoped that the activity would help the women reconceptualize their role

as women and thus change power relations at home and in the village. It was not just an

economic enterprise, but a social one, where the seeds to be cultivated were not simply of a

monetary nature. Based on the conviction that such values can only grow within a collective

enterprise, they should organize as a group, follow democratic procedures and overcome petty

conflicts amongst the members. The latter was perhaps the most difficult, since the women

belonged to different kin groupings in the village, where long- held quarrels were latent, but

the group did develop democratic skills, they came to value their identity as women in a

different way, and to move in the world of government offices and beekeepers organizations

instead of only the village, though, after more than 10 years, they have hardly earned money

from the beekeeping enterprise.

Thus, the range of resources and assets brought into the beekeepers everyday life endeavors is

vast. As I have mentioned, it would be a mistake to package them all in the label of capital,

assuming that they are introduced as an investment, with the expectation of profit. Yet, we


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cannot ignore the fact that many social, cultural and experiential elements are important

contributing factors to make an enterprise profitable. The beekeeping venture did not turn out

to be a model of profitability in monetary terms, but the women did resort to contacts with

other beekeepers in the region when they could not solve a problem, which helped them keep

the enterprise afloat. They expanded their networks, gained experience, and learned that they

have the right to access government credit schemes, as well as other programmes for

improving their homes, and scholarships for their sons and daughters schooling, some of

which they have taken up.

There was, however, one activity that did not surface for external eyes. This was constructed

on the basis of their needs, capabilities, experience and information. They had two harvests a

year, which geneally yielded almost the equivalent to the amount due to the bank for that

period. But their payments were to be made on a two year basis, so they had to hold on to the

harvest money for relatively long periods. Quietly, the group decided to lend themselves the

money with a very low interest rate. In this way, individual members were able to access funds

under better conditions than with local moneylenders, and, when payment was due, they had

slightly increased the amount to pay the bank. Although the amounts they borrowed were

small, the value of having access to funds when families needed them was significant. The

economic things they obtained from their enterprise cannot only be measured in monetary

terms.

A few years later the women abandoned beekeeping, but they continued participating in local

credit and savings associations and investing in chickens and pigs at home.

The issue of capitalization

In retrospect, one can see that there was another important resource being negotiated in the

case of the beekeepers. This has to do with their identity as poor rural women. Such

identification proved useful to access government funds for the enterprise. Although the

beekeepers did not seek out this particular programme, on several occasions they did

purposefuly portay an image of poor women (which they were, of course) to obtain support for


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their enterprise. This is nothing out of the ordinary. Successful entrepreneurs capitalise on their

identities and prestige (or the prestige of their product). They build an image and profit from it.

In development practice such stereotyped image of the poor is important. It fuels motivation

for practitioners as well as donors. The poor are portrayed as those who do not have: lacking is

the quintessence of their identity, the definition of their being. Poverty is about deficit of

resources, unfulfilment of needs, exclusion, lack of access, of control and of power. And

deficit calls for provision. From this viewpoint, financial resources, education, technology,

access, discernment and empowerment must be conferred to the poor.

The problem is that the notion of poor dooms the bearer to a subordinate, powerless status,

and the notion of provider predestines the bearer to a higher status, where power and control

are accessible. Dearth is thus woven discursively into particular relations of power,

subordination and status.

Impoverishment can be brought about by lack of employment, by having to invest their meagre

profits in health, for example, due to the propagation of sickness and an insufficiency of

clinics, or in transport due to lack of proper roads. It has been brought about through processes

of colonisation, monopolisation of resources and seizing, as well as the workings of financial

and commodity markets. And it continues to be reinforced by biased economic policies, bad

planning and mismanagement. But it has also been brought about by distrust towards those

considered poor: poverty is all too frequently associated to ignorance, filth, dishonesty and

violence, and such associations close up possibilities of access to information and decision

making circles. It has been made possible by lack of legal frameworks to protect their rights,

by processes of corruption which foster twisted leaderships at local level, and by the peoples

diminished capacity for political agency, whose organisations have not been able to represent

the interests of their groups in defence of their resources. Political agency has been limited due

to lack of information, discrimination processes and lack of technological and market options.

To be sure, the beekeepers were not passive victims of such power inequalities. They managed

to use their image as vulnerable women to a degree of advantage. However, there was a limit


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as to how far they could go with the profits obtained from this identity. Such practices tend to

reproduce, rather than change the conditions that one would like to see transformed. But the

point is that stereotypical models of poverty gloss over the complex interweaving of haves and

have-nots, the ways in which people gamble with their assets and liabilities, which are of

utmost relevance for the reproduction of poverty as well as for the construction of alternatives

to it. An analysis of the issue of poverty requires stepping back from stereotypical notions of

the poor and examining the ways in which those identified as destitute deploy resources and

act in pursuing their livelihoods. Resources here include material assets such as land and other

possessions, but also immaterial ones like social identity.

In this scenario, we are less interested in capital itself, and should be more concerned with

processes of capitalization. Gaining economic control is not about stockpiling resources, or

about proper registration in accountancy books, but entails the use of material and immaterial

resources (including social, cultural and symbolic aspects). Until recently, it was believed that

savings were the key to capitalisation. However, the relevance of intangibles such as

knowledge, clientele, image and prestige have come to occupy many pages in management

books and are the topic of conferences for entrepreneurs. It is clear that it is not only the

amount of resources that makes for wealth or poverty, but the possibility of usufruct, of

transforming them into a steady source of food and other indispensable goods.

It is also clear that capitalization is not reduced to accumulation. It has to do with profiting

from the value attributed to a particular resource. Hence, a crucial issue that we have

underlined above is how assets and identities are weighed and measured and how their

perceived virtues and attributes are made relevant.

And in todays world, the range of what can be identified as an asset yielding monetary

benefits seems to have increased, or at least, diverse resources are quite explicitly priced and

allocated in ways that were previously un- thought of. This compels social scientists to

reassess the notions of ownership and entitlements, particularly the ways in which these

provide the basis upon which poverty is defined.


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Bees, chickens, pigs, cows ... and social relations. How can they become capital and

produce economic things?

In De Sotos view, the difference between dead and active capital is quite clear. One circulates

in the market and produces profit, and the other does not engage and therefore does not

produce gain.

But I hope to have shown that

1.- Gain is not always measured in monetary terms. The makeup of capital is more complex, as

De Soto himself recognizes. The material base in terms of direct cash is no longer the main

currency in international markets, which, with the turn towards a more virtual existence,

recognize pre-existing and new currencies framed in terms of information and trust (Hart 2001,

Weatherford 1997, Forrester 2000). Activating capital, in this scenario, involves the

manipulation of symbols, the imposition of interpretations and anticipation of the future.

In the same way, active capital, in rural Mexico, involves different currencies other than

solely the monetary. As long as cattle continues to be a marker of status, men will continue

preferring this alternative to other, perhaps more profitable, ones. And women will tend to

weigh the costs and benefits of goats, pigs and chickens, calculating in local currencies. It is

not that they are not interested in money, or in becoming modern entrepreneurs, but

anticipation of risks and possible conflicts are strong considerations.

2.- Not all of peoples resources are or can be visualized as capital, and , although there are

many intangibles that can be articulated into market circuits into producing gain, they do not

automatically do so. Hence, the idea that social capital can be injected from the outside is not

only misplaced, but can be dangerous, triggering processes in unwanted directions.

3.- It is clear that capital is not a build up of assets, but their mobilization. To accumulate is not

to capitalize. Actually, the same goes for social assets. It is not the number of social ties that

count, but the way these are signified and used. Here calculations and predictions vis a vis the


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future structure of opportunities (where processes of construction of image and identification

are crucial) enter into the equation.

4.- Hence one has to focus on the processes of capitalization. We have detailed the complexity

involved in the micro entrepreneurial activities of a group of women. To operate a small

enterprise they must bring into play a host of resources, weighed and assessed in terms of

different currencies. Such resources are not lifeless, and, although they are signified and

weighed with heterogeneous dimensions in mind, they must not be separated off as pertaining

to a different system. What must be clear is that social, cultural, human, ethical and other

dimensions also enter into the equation in profit-making. They are not only brought into play

as assets, but also as deterrants to the posibility of capitalizing.

5.- While one has to acknowledge that power relations lead to forms of exclusion and make

capitalization almost impossible for the poor, it is equally important to recognize that power is

commonly based on reified forms of categorization that are credited with a quantification of

forces and resources, and this is closely related to the ways in which social and symbolic

resources are deployed and made significant .

In closing, let us say that poverty as is depicted in thousands of pages of academic and non-

academic literature is linked to mechanisms of distribution, exclusion and access. If one

concentrates primarily on the final picture, the obvious concern is the allocation of resources

themselves. The question concerns who owns what: whether the poor possess land, cattle or

other forms of capital that can produce food and satisfy their basic needs, and if they have

technology and other means to make that production viable. A great deal of emphasis tends to

be placed on the need to provide the missing resources (i.e through land redistribution,

education, technological training, credit schemes, etc).

To come to an understanding of poverty, we need to delve into the underlying processes

by which resources including land, labour, credit and aid, water and cash, but also

knowledge, skills, social networks, organisation and moral entitlements are accessed,

organized and negotiated, recognizing the range of social and cultural currencies that enter into

play in economic transactions. Analyzing their mechanisms of operation helps us understand


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the ways in which people juggle with diverse assets and liabilities and the forms of social

compensation they devise to cope with uncertainty, so crucial to the workings of their

economic life.

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striving to make capital do

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