This case study examines the role of social capital in addressing the problem of persistent unemployment among rural Kyrgyzstani women. Social capital, connections to others who may help or connect one to needed resources (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Woolcock, 1998), opened the pathway for a group of rural women in Kyrgyzstan to become nascent owners of a community-based enterprise (CBE). An initial literature review and a mixed methods needs assessment confirmed that key challenges facing unemployed rural Kyrgyzstani women are a scarcity of jobs nearby, few reliable support services, low entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and family dynamics and domestic responsibilities within a patriarchal society that left them feeling isolated. An additional literature review, exploring a variety of interventions typically used to alleviate persistent unemployment among low-income rural communities, provided best practices or key features used to guide the case study analysis. Semi-structured interviews based on Mertova and Webster’s (2019) questions for conducting a narrative inquiry on critical events and Stephenson’s (2013) social network analysis (SNA) guided the data collection method. Critical events and SNA confirmed that social capital emerged from embedded close-knit relationships. These relationships developed further connections with the wider community, opening the door to acquiring knowledge and capacity building. Through the development of new social networks (Stephenson, 2013), NGOs offered relevant training and access to information about government affordances, such as the State Land Redistribution Reserve Fund (SLRRF). Over time, as the rural women began to learn, plan, and set goals, their mindset shifted to prioritizing collaboration. Their activities bore a striking resemblance to the plan-do-study-act improvement science cycle (Bryk et al., 2016). In alignment with andragogy (Knowles et al., 2005) and sociocultural theory of learning (Vygotsky, 1978), the nascent owners invested in developing
social networks as active learners pursuing the entrepreneurial goal of co-operatively establishing a farm
