The foundation for this course lies with unique synergies between pioneering research, teaching, and social initiatives through the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative. Unique to this approach is a bottom-up understanding of the intersection of poverty and the marketplace. The goals of this course are to help you develop an understanding of marketplace activity in the radically different context of subsistence where much of humanity resides and survives, and for you to design solutions that can be implemented by individuals, businesses, and social enterprises through economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable products for subsistence marketplaces.
Module 1 Live Session: January 18, 2014
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En provenance du cours de University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Subsistence Marketplaces
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À partir de la leçon
Introduction to Subsistence Marketplaces Approach
In this module you will learn about the bottom-up approach to the study of subsistence marketplaces. The module will also discuss cognitive predilections engendered by low-income and low-literacy in subsistence marketplaces.
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Madhu ViswanathanDiane and Steven N. Miller Professor in Business
Department of Business Administration
[BLANK_AUDIO]
>> [INAUDIBLE].
>> Good morning everybody.
This is Madhu Viswanathan from the College of
Business at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign.
It's a real privilege and a pleasure to be talking to all
of you, and I hope that this becomes a conversation each Saturday morning.
We want to welcome you to this course.
It's a cold winter morning in Champaign il, Illinois.
Which is about 130 miles south of Chicago, it's fascinating to
see all the conversations coming to us from around the world.
Er, I have been fortunate to study the intersection of poverty,
and market places, in the number of places around the world.
But now, it seems like the world is coming to us in terms of different sights.
And we are very grateful for that.
With me this morning is [UNKNOWN] who is the head of our E-loaning team
and we will work hard to put together a great learning experience for you.
I want to use this forum to cover some issues and from
next week to have questions from selected panel of participants as well.
A couple of things to mention.
First of all, this is the first week of the course.
And given our bottom up approach we're trying to peel the
onion of what a subsistence and what are the subsistence marketplaces.
We want to go beyond words.
You want to go beyond words like social networks and social capital.
And really try to peel the onion in terms of.
How people think because of low literacy, and how they feel and, and
so on, and we will continue to do that over the next few weeks.
This is the part of the course which is on understanding subsistence marketplaces.
A number of issues in the discussion.
Our team analyzes these discussions, and I try to skip it
as well to get a sense of what is going on.
We tried to participate here and there.
But you can understand that there's a large volume of discussion.
So we don't want to miss anything.
At the same time, we try to digest all of
that, and come up with a few issues to focus on.
One of the issues is, what is a substance?
And to be honest with you, this is a term we'd like to use.
The reflect on individuals and communities that are barely making ends meet.
Maybe your hospital was at the way from bankruptcy, maybe
it's somebody who's never seen a hospital in their lives.
So it covers a broad range of low income, from survival to subsistence.
And sustaining a simple life, to even moving out of poverty.
So anytime you have a range, you want to
make sure and understand the edges of this phenomenon.
On the one edge are people who are barely surviving.
A few days ago I was talking to people who live on the road side.
These are migrant workers who literally live on the road
in the sidewalk or the pavement and from day to day.
On the other end of the continuum are people coming out
of poverty, in large numbers in emerging economies like China and India.
The way we approach.
This term, in terms of what it means.
Subsistence is very local.
We try to look at differences between
urban settings, semi-urban settings, and rural settings.
And specific geographies we are in.
In terms of what it takes to barely make ends meet.
What it makes to lead a simple life and so on.
I also want to point out that there's progress.
So subsistence 20, 30 years ago in one setting,
in an urban setting may have been a kerosene stove.
Today it may be a gas stove.
And, so there is progress as well.
And we want to cover the entire range.
We want to cover, as I said, urban.
Semi urban, rural, tribal communities, a variety of different,
people living in poverty, and making it day to day.
Now each context is different and challenging in it's own way.
Each context of poverty is different.
I am coming to you from cold weather, and
you can think about what it means to be homeless.
Hard to not have heating in this kind of weather.
So each context is different.
And we have to acknowledge that, and that's where I see a
lot of the learning for us as well, in following your discussions.
Now, let's talk a little bit about the project.
I would encourage you to pursue the project for a number of reasons.
Even if you are pretending to go through the steps.
Even if you are playing it out.
First of all, in this 24/7 world that we live
in, you are bringing a lot of effort into this course.
It is also a great time to add to that effort, so
that you apply our learning for an area that you are passionate about.
Now what if you cannot find subsistence marketplaces,
or lack access, what can you do about that?
Well I would encourage you to pick a
phenomenon or a topic that you are passionate about.
Maybe it's health, maybe it's the environment,
maybe it's even some situations like natural disasters.
And I would encourage you to pursue these.
Phenomenal are these topics in terms of a project.
So that our resource constraints.
And we have people living in subsistence, We have communities in subsistence.
But there are also situational resource constraints
which maybe due to natural disasters, and
so on, or it may be due to adversities, related to health and so on.
So I would encourage you to find topics, and settings that serve as a
proxy for understanding individuals and communities living
in subsistance and living at resource constructs.
One last reason to try out your project.
It minimizes the distance between you, and what
you are trying to study, which is subsistance.
In my case it's very important as
I've noted before I've never experienced poverty.
So every time I come away from a setting, I feel like there is a distance.
The roads I use really don't capture my experience, so I have to
go back and be grounded and re-grounded, and I thoroughly enjoy that process.
This is a setting that is unfamiliar to
me, this is a setting that I haven't experienced.
In day to day life, and, so this weak founding is
very important and that is another reason to focus on the project.
It's a way for you to be grounded as you've discussed this
project with others, and use words, and visuals and so on to communicate.
Because a grounded experience will be with you.
As you learn and as you teach yourselves well.
finally, I want to say that with your project we are finding ways
for you to work in teams as well, that are across geographies.
And in our model, I talk a little bit more about
that, and we will make sure that there announcements and demos.
So, that you can explore doing a project that's across different
geographies, with classmates who are in different parts of the world.
So let me close again by saying that this has been a, a wonderful experience for
us to put the course together, and now, as we launch it, we are very excited.
To work with you to make this a great learning experience for you.
So I'm going to now turn things over to Norma [INAUDIBLE] who
will talk about some of the issues relating to the course.
>> Good morning for people in, in this side of the
hemisphere and good afternoon or good night for, for the others.
I'm thrilled to be here with Madhu and trying this experiment that is.
Is of course this massive online course.
I want to encourage you to continue to participating, as you are, participating.
And, I, have seen with great delight, with the interest to, work in your project.
So feel fellow madhu's explanations on how to do it?
Don't feel constrained by having to take pictures or not.
The important thing is to know the description of
your project, and if you have pictures, much better.
And if not, we'll figure something out and help you get done.
And I also want to encourage you to
work with your, with communities in your own language.
I've seen that there is a forum already created course assistant market
places Latin America, and it's in Spanish, so they discuss issues in Spanish,
and then they bring them back to the forum to the general discussion forum.
Don't be shy if you want to do that do that may help you communicate with people.
People in your local areas or in your same areas.
And also I want to note, tell you that we are
planning to have, the permission slip that has been created when
you interview a person if you want to get their approval
to use that interview, or that picture in a public setting.
We will have that in different languages.
So that, but if you want to translate it and share it with us,
for our approval, so that you can use that, feel free to do so.
We, there are not a lot of languages that we can translate at the university.
I want to welcome you all.
And next, week, we're going to have a similar session.
But this time, we're going to invite some of
the participants in the forums, to, to, be here.
And ask some question, to Madhu as the session goes on.
The sessions are going to be, short.
15 minutes, at most.
But, if, we, when we select participants to be, in this hangout.
You will be those will be able send some of the questions
and the instructor will respond and we're going to have like a conversation.
I hope to, I'm looking forward to continue reading your post this week and
I think that's it for today Madhu I don't know if there's something else to to add.
>> Oh thank you very much.
Thanks Norma.
We will say goodbye at this point, and
we really look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you so much.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
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