Author:  Nadia Karim Affiliation:  Independent Researcher Abstract The informal economy has long been an essential yet contested component of global development. While early development theories predicted that informal work would shrink as countries modernised, recent empirical evidence shows the opposite trend: informal employment remains widespread, dynamic, and deeply woven into the livelihoods of billions of people. Today, an estimated two billion workers worldwide operat

Social entrepreneurship has rapidly evolved from a niche practice to a mainstream strategy for addressing complex social and environmental problems. Yet the mechanisms that enable social enterprises to mobilize resources, build trust, and sustain impact remain contested. This article examines social entrepreneurship through Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social capital and complementary lenses from world-systems analysis and institutional isomorphism. Using a mixed conceptual–a