Turning the tables: fighting furniture poverty through social enterprise

扭转局面：通过社会企业消除家具贫困

• 批准号: 2886549
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Liverpool
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2886549
• 关键词: Turning; tables; fighting; furniture; poverty

This project, developed collaboratively between the University of Liverpool and Liverpool's Furniture Resource Centre (FRC), explores how FRC fights furniture poverty - the inability to afford or access furniture and furnishings that facilitate a decent quality of life and the ability to participate in the norms of society - as a material dimension of austerity through which the material anchors of familiar, and necessary, furniture and furnishings are degraded or lost.The project examines diverse economies perspectives, the role of social enterprise and circular production to understand how furniture and furnishings in the home facilitate a decent quality of life within the norms of society. The project aims to enhance academic understanding of how diverse economies perspectives and material practices research can be brought together to understand how social enterprises support people to make a home and combat furniture poverty in austere times. The project will examine competing pressures on social enterprise in terms of 'doing good' while working within the bounds of what are seen as good business practices. In addition, the research explores new geographical knowledge about the lifecycle and use of material goods , extending understandings of the work of 'scavengers' who locate and reuse unwanted material goods, the 'decomposers' who pull them apart and reuse the materials in them or return them safely to the environment, and the networks in which they operate. Contribution to knowledgeSocial enterprises like FRC need to respond to funder's priorities, available resources and prevailing orthodoxies about how to meet needs and deliver services. In the current context, austerity has meant that more must be done with less, and trade-offs made. Although social enterprises are well used to balancing competing pressures, they can start to suffer from - and recognise that they are suffering from - mission drift as financial pressures crowd out social and environmental concerns. This can be especially problematic when austerity has severely constrained their capacity to act.While critics of social enterprises consequently see them as an inadequate response to continued destitution in an austere society, or even complicit in it, they have also been conceptualised as valuable emergent or generative spaces, grassroots innovation niches or 'transition labs' pioneering novel ways of delivering services and meeting needs - in this case providing furniture to people who don't have it.A diverse economies perspective suggests how these competing pressures affect how social enterprises act in concrete ways that cannot be specified in advance from above, but need to be unpacked through empirically-based, detailed, or 'thick' descriptions of the ethics, everyday practices and activities of specific social enterprise embedded in places - emphasising their creative potential in solving problems. Impact and disseminationAs well as the thesis and academic outputs, a final report will be produced for FRC. I'm currently working with FRC staff to support their campaigning work and to support the drive towards creating resilient communities and better support for families in need. The research results will be disseminated through reports, policy briefs, blogs and content on FRC's End Furniture Poverty website and presentations at social enterprise and housing - especially social housing-focused conferences. At a city level, I will work with the Liverpool Social Enterprise panel, which brings together social enterprises in the city region. Both the primary and FRC-based supervisors sit on this.

该项目由利物浦大学和利物浦家具资源中心 (FRC) 合作开发，探讨了 FRC 如何应对家具贫困——无法负担或获得有助于体面生活质量的家具和家具以及参与规范的能力社会的影响 - 作为紧缩的一个物质维度，通过它，熟悉且必要的家具和陈设的物质锚被退化或丢失。该项目研究了不同的经济观点、社会企业和循环生产的作用，以了解家庭中的家具和陈设如何在社会规范范围内促进体面的生活质量。该项目旨在加强对如何将不同经济观点和材料实践研究结合起来的学术理解，以了解社会企业如何支持人们在严峻时期建立家园并消除家具贫困。该项目将审查社会企业在“行善”方面面临的竞争压力，同时在良好的商业实践范围内开展工作。此外，该研究还探索了有关物质产品的生命周期和使用的新地理知识，扩展了对“拾荒者”工作的理解，“拾荒者”找到并重复使用不需要的物质产品，“分解者”将它们拆开并重复使用其中的材料，或者将它们安全地返回到环境以及它们运行的​​网络中。对知识的贡献像 FRC 这样的社会企业需要对资助者的优先事项、可用资源以及关于如何满足需求和提供服务的普遍观念做出反应。在当前背景下，紧缩意味着必须少花钱多办事，并做出权衡。尽管社会企业已经习惯于平衡竞争压力，但随着财务压力排挤了社会和环境问题，它们可能开始遭受——并且认识到它们正在遭受——使命漂移的困扰。当紧缩政策严重限制了它们的行动能力时，这可能尤其成问题。因此，虽然社会企业的批评者认为它们对紧缩社会中持续贫困的反应不充分，甚至是其中的同谋，但它们也被概念化为有价值的新兴或生成空间、草根创新利基或“转型实验室”开创了提供服务和满足需求的新方式 - 在这种情况下为没有家具的人提供家具。多元化的经济视角表明这些竞争者如何压力影响社会企业如何以具体的方式行事，这些具体方式无法从上面预先指定，但需要通过基于经验的、详细的或“厚重”的描述来解开特定社会企业嵌入地方的道德、日常实践和活动- 强调他们解决问题的创造性潜力。影响和传播以及论文和学术成果，最终报告将提交给 FRC。我目前正在与 FRC 工作人员合作，支持他们的竞选工作，支持创建有复原力的社区并为有需要的家庭提供更好的支持。研究结果将通过报告、政策简报、博客和 FRC 的“终结家具贫困”网站上的内容以及在社会企业和住房（特别是以社会住房为重点的会议）上的演讲进行传播。在城市层面，我将与利物浦社会企业小组合作，该小组汇集了城市地区的社会企业。主要监管机构和 FRC 监管机构均对此负责。