The Empowerment of marginalized people is nowadays an embedded concern of different supranational organizations such as the UN and the EU which have gradually lined up to become its stewards. The recent policies and mandates adopted by the EU, have as a founding an explicit objective in the Article of the Treaty on European Union which states: "with its support to Member States in the fight against poverty, social exclusion, and discrimination, the European Union aims to strengthen the inclusive character and cohesion of European society and to ensure that all citizens have equal access to opportunities and resources". United Nations with the Human Development Office (UN) publications explain how “expanding choices can empower people to act on their values” and how the entire political agenda must be oriented to foster such empowering processes: "Human development is about empowering people to identify and pursue their own paths for a meaningful life, one anchored in expanding freedoms". Indeed, Empowerment policies have found increasing consensus and now it is reflected in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with the claim “Leaving No One behind" meant to “seriously attend to the structural conditions and violence creating and perpetuating inequalities, and listen to and include the experiences and priorities of those most marginalized".
However, what does marginalization mean? Marginalization means disempowerment from a human point of view, insofar as people are excluded from getting access to the possibilities of flourishing their potentiality; from an economic point of view, insofar as these people are excluded from the economic value creation process; finally, from a political point of view, when these people are actually excluded from performing the right to make a choice.
Thus, if marginalization refers to different states of disempowerment, what does it mean to foster Empowerment? What are the actual means by which the Empowerment process can be put in place? Theoretically, different streams of thought have discussed Empowerment with different approaches (i.e. the Capability Approach, the Empowerment Theory, etc.). In my fellowship, I tried to get the best from each of them to finally see empowerment as a process of expansion of the freedoms of the marginalized through the unblocking of their potential value as human beings. In particular, in my research, I explored how specific kinds of economic organizations, namely the Social Business Hybrids can accomplish such a value unblocking. All the activities performed in the three WorkPackages converge in this whole overarching achievement: I developed and tested theoretical and practical tools capable to explain how Social Business Hybrids different from typical no-profits can be actually capable to empower marginalized people.
