Isabelle Turcotte spent her formative years moving frequently between cities and countries, sparking from a young age her interest in understanding different cultures and realities. During the course of her undergraduate studies in Business Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, Isabelle spent her summers abroad working on development projects with local NGOs in Mexico and Argentina, shaping her decision to graduate with a specialization in entrepreneurship and international development in 2007. After spending a year working with street youth in Honduras, she pursued a graduate degree in International Development at ISS, focusing on the inclusion of vulnerable population in local economic development processes. After graduating with distinction in 2009, she continued to gain expertise in the economic and social integration of women and youth by working with CUSO-VSO in Peru and the UN in the DR of Congo. Her recent consulting activities have brought her back to the field of social research, participating in qualitative analyses with the International Rescue Committee.

Georgina M. Gómez is Lecturer in Institutions and Local Development, at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). She is fascinated by the ways in which people organise their economic life and eventually construct economic systems together. Civil society organisations get involved in collective action to configure institutions and resolve governance issues. This is clear in areas like labour, industry, public goods' provision and environmental care. Her fields of interest centre on the organisation of economic activities beyond state regulation, like non-waged forms of income generation framed by the poor and unemployed. Her main affinities in terms of theory are the Old Institutional Economics, New Political Economy, and Economic Sociology.