The Mobilization of Noncooperative Spaces: Reflections from Rohingya Refugee Camps

Abstract

In this essay, I challenge key assumptions in the mainstream entrepreneurship literature that individuals have the capability to change their fate through entrepreneurial activities wherever in the world they may be. I advance the concept of a coordinated and regulative cooperative market to argue that the rebalancing of power between marginalized actors such as refugees and ordinary locals, and powerful agents of what I term the ‘uncooperative sociostructure’ is essential in order to improve the wellbeing of refugees. Without a cooperative sociostructural intervention, capitalistic market mechanisms such as bottom of the pyramid (BoP) and microfinance as means to individual freedom simply imprison refugees further.