Abstract

BOTINA NARVAEZ, Sandra Lorena. Social capital and socio-laboral linkage. The case of Colombian people returns to North of Santander (Colombia). Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2020, vol.43, n.2, pp.293-310.  Epub May 08, 2021. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v43n2.79138.

This article introduces an analysis proposal on how the social capital is present in the initiatives and collective strategies of people that belong to the production units of the Local integration area of the Jesuit Service Corporation for refugees (SJR), in the Norte de Santander (Colombia), with the purpose of involving them at a social and laboral level. The study of this topic began in 2015, in the context of a humanitarian emergency that took place in Venezuela' border, at that same time they were also welcomed by the SJR through the program Means of Life. That program pursues the initial transit of the Humanitarian emergency and aims at the consolidation of a territorial establishment process in San José de Cucuta and municipalities.

It seeks to understand how the social capital builts in the productive units of seven returnees hosted by the livelihoods program during 2017, representing channels of economic support through productive projects as Training, seed capital endowment, and business plan advising services. Professionals in the Local integration area of SJR carried out all these services. To access to the returnees and professionals, a qualitative methodology with a hermeneutic approach was applied while attending the participant observation, the Participatory workshop, and semi-structured interviews as information collection techniques. The productive units became the means to discover the social resources the returnees count with as reciprocity, trust, and cooperation, and how these are manifested in the strong or weak relationships established with their networks like family, returning friends, employers, and institutional officials.

These networks have an instrumental role in the search for employment, support in situations of need, or in the access to provide other types of goods or services. Within the creation and execution of the productive units, the returnees activated their creativity, innovation, attitude, and motivation for work, they applied their social skills to interact and communicate with clients and employers, as well as strategies to achieve the goals established in their business plan, as well as engaging improvement opportunities for their socio-labour link.

Descriptors: entrepreneurship, involuntary return, migration, social capital, social network, socio-labour linkage, voluntary return.

Keywords : migration; productive units; return; social capital; social network,s socio-labour linkage.

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