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This is list of frequently asked questions about the journal, Subsistence Marketplaces. We invite you to read and consider submitting to this inter-sector, interdisciplinary orientation aimed toward an audience of researchers, educators, and practitioners in all sectors.

What is this journal about?

This journal and knowledge-practice portal on subsistence marketplaces is a platform to connect all scholars, practitioners and everyone else to share and disseminate knowledge related to bottom-up approach from micro-level foundations and it intends to achieve the following:

  • Focus on consumers, entrepreneurs, and marketplaces in the broad range of low income – from extreme poverty to the lower end of lower-middle income
  • Bottom-up approach to generating and aggregating insights
          - For designing solutions
          - For developing enterprise models
          - For sustainable development
  • An inter-sector, interdisciplinary orientation aimed toward an audience of researchers, educators, and practitioners in all sectors
  • Synergies between research, teaching, and practice
  • An active collaboration with practitioner partners interested in such insights

What this journal is NOT

This journal is:

  • not a social media group/informal community space. It is a refereed journal (with sections that are invited) that publishes original research about subsistence marketplaces. It is a forum for researchers, educators, and practitioners at the forefront of work in this stream. It is coupled with a knowledge-practice portal for the development of research and practice as well as the cycle between published research and practice.
  • not an outlet for substandard work but it is a refereed journal represented by researchers, educators, and practitioners who conduct quality work.

Why is this journal unique?

This journal is unique in a number of ways. It aims to support the research-practice endeavor end-to-end or, before, during and after, through:

  • connecting researchers to practitioners
  • creating forums for development of research
  • providing a space for protocols of planned research
  • providing an outlet for research
  • enabling the translation from research to practice
  • enabling the translation from practice to research
  • creating a platform for knowledge-practice or academic-social enterprise
  • envisioning new metrics for gauging impact to a broad audience

Who is this journal for?

The journal welcomes submissions from academic scholars, researchers, educators, practitioners, consultancies, social enterprises and thought leaders in all sectors.

What are grounds for desk-rejections?

Apart from the lack of fit or lack of quality of the work, papers that need copy-editing will be desk-rejected. Papers that have been turned around without consideration of the nature of the journal or work that has come before in this stream and in related literature may also be desk-rejected. Research papers that do not devote attention to specific translation of research to practice may also be desk-rejected.

What are the journal’s objectives?

Our objectives are as follows:

  1. To provide a forum for research, education, and practice at the intersection of a wide-range of low-income contexts and marketplaces.
  2. To highlight work on subsistence marketplaces that is grounded at the micro-level or reflects ground reality and takes a bottom-up orientation.
  3. To provide an ecosystem through the entire research and intervention value cycle from formulation to completion and translation to practice.

What types of submission will be considered?

The journal will also be distinct in allowing for a more even balance between rigor and creativity, as well as between cleanly interpretable results and messy reality.

A variety of papers are welcomed and supporting multi-media can be submitted with papers.

  • Research Article (Up to 8000 words)
  • Research Notes (Up to 4000 words)
  • Commentary/Perspective/Opinion Article (Up to 3000 words)
  • Case Study (2000-4000 words)

The journal will be fully online. Authors will hold all rights to their work. Authors will take responsibility for hiring copy-editing services to bring their work to the highest quality of presentation.

Where can I find the details for submission and formatting?

Details can be found at the journal website.

Details for Submission

Who can I write to if I have any doubts regarding my submission?

You may write to the Executive Editor if you have any clarifications at

Contact the Editor

Who is on the Editorial Board of the journal?

The following are on the Editorial Board and serve as Area Editors. They represent researchers, educators, and practitioners at the forefront of work in this stream.

Editor-in-Chief

Madhu Viswanathan (Loyola Marymount University, and Emeritus, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA)

Executive Editors

Paul Ingenbleek (Wageningen University, Netherlands)
Lisa Jones (Brigham Young University, USA)
Jacob Park (University of Johannesburg, South Africa and Castleton University, USA)
Ramendra Singh (Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, India)
Srinivas Venugopal (University of Vermont, USA)

Associate Editors – Research (Regular submissions, research notes, research in development)

Andrés Barrios (Associate Professor, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia)
Ronika Chakraborti (Trinity College, UK)
Benét DeBerry-Spence (University of Illinois, Chicago, USA)
Roland Gau (National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
Saravana Jaikumar (Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, India)
Arun Sreekumar (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India)
Laurel Steinfield (Bentley University, USA)
Shikha Upadhyaya (California State University Los Angeles, USA)

Associate Editor – Education

Norma Scagnoli (Northeastern University, USA)

Associate Editors – Social Enterprise

Ronald Duncan (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Loyola Marymount University, USA)
Francesca Lucchi (Development Consultant)
Ramadhani Kupaza (Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative and Marketplace Literacy Project, Tanzania)

Associate Editor – Business

Nagendra Rangavajla (Califia Farms, USA)