Towards a global history of consumer co-operation

Mary Hilson, UCL

Silke Neunsinger, ARAB

http://www.arbark.se/forskning/projekt/co-op/

coop@arbark.se

Regions covered by expert

Geographical scope of the project

Participants (Stockholm, May 2012)

• Nikola Balnave• Patrizia Battilani• Susan Fitzpatrick Behrens• Bhaswati Bhattacharya• Natalia Burnasheva• Eric Calderwood• María Eugenia Castelao Caruana• Suleman Chambo• Kay Wah Chan• Keri Davies• Bernard Degen• Espen Ekberg• Dulce Freire• Katarina Friberg• Rekha Ramesh Gaonkar• Esther Gicheru• Geert van Goethem• Mary Ip• Florian Jagschitz• Hyungmi Kim

• Akira Kurimoto

• Simon Lambersens

• Catherine LeGrand

• Marcel van der Linden

• Ian MacPherson

• Francisco José Medina-Albaladejo

• Alain Mélo

• Tito Menzani

• Jessica Gordon Nembhard

• Sigismundo Bialoskorski Neto

• Tony O’Rourke

• Greg Patmore

• Joana Dias Pereira

• Michael Prinz

• Rita Rhodes

• Robert Schediwy

• Linda Shaw

• Suroto

• Griselda Verbeke

• Rachael Vorberg-Rugh

• Mirta Vuotto

Main questions

1) Why do people form co-operatives?

2) Co-operation as a global phenomenon: connections and entanglements

3) Diversity in time and space

1) What is consumer co-operation?

Elanto bee, Helsinki

Beyond Rochdale

Consumer co-operation as budget-pooling

“several individuals or households pay into a joint fund, used to purchase goods for subsequent distribution among these individuals or households” (van der Linden 2008: 133)

The co-operative grocery store

Picture: Finnish Labour Archives, Helsinki

2) Co-operative history in relation to global history

1. Late C19th spread of co-operative ideas

2. 1930s-1960s state involvement

3. 1970s-1990s liberalisation and increased competition

4. 2000- co-operative renaissance?

3) Entanglements and connections: transnational co-operative exchange

1) Migration of people...

Charles Gide, 1847-1932Toyohiko Kagawa,

1888-1960

Emmy Freundlich, 1878-1948 (picture Austrian National Library)

2) ... and movement of goods

3) States and empires

a)Legacies of co-operative history: tools of the state or sites of resistance?

b)Neo-colonial influences, e.g. churches, overseas aid?

4) International organisations

The challenges of global history

1)Methodological nationalism

2)Euro-centrism

An emancipatory global co-operative studies?

“a post-capitalist, post-liberal (and post-state-socialist) understanding of democracy, production, rights and knowledges, a liberated cyberspace and a new global solidarity.”

Peter Waterman, “ An emancipatory global labour studies is necessary! On rethinking the global labour movement in the hour of furnaces”, International Institute of Social History research Paper 49 (2012), pp. 18-19.