Who’s on the Map

Theorizing Economic Space

The production of capitalist space has been a central concern of social theorists. The historical and materialist perspectives of leading scholars like David Harvey, Neil Smith and James O’Connor offer compelling accounts of how the inherent logic of capitalist growth has enabled capitalism to dominate economic space. My research has been partially informed by these theoretical precedents. However, my central concern has been the production not of capitalist spaces, but of non-capitalist ones, particularly worker co-operatives.

Map from Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives pamphlet. Image courtesy Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives

My focus on co-operative (rather than capitalist) space was inspired by theories of performativity, economic diversity, and paranoid strong vs weak theory. I believe that theory and discourse contribute to producing the conditions they purport to describe, in this case a “capitalist economy.” As JK Gibson-Graham argues, both the political right and left are producing knowledge—a map, if you will—of an economy that is strictly capitalist. On the right, capitalism is depicted as the bearer of democracy, modernity and technological innovation, while the left represents capitalism as a self-reproducing perpetrator of destruction, a colonizer and penetrator of non-capitalist spaces. Gibson-Graham calls these perspectives “capitalocentric” because “capitalism” is the master term that gives everything its identity and meaning. Every economic practice, relationship, and effect (good and bad) is related back to the same central driver: capitalism (and its consequences or opportunities). Capitalocentric thinking is problematic because it obscures economic diversity and thus limits the possibility for non-capitalist interventions, innovations, and experiments.

In The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It), Gibson-Graham deconstructs the discursive totality of capitalist hegemony and suggests that the widespread representation of “the economy” as singular and singularly capitalist has contributed to that reality “on the ground.” From this perspective, research agendas strictly focused on capitalist space (even in order to change it) may have the effect of (re)producing capitalism by making its (non-capitalist) others invisible. From classical and neoclassical economics to various strains of political economy, shared representations of economic space as coextensive with capitalism have effectively wiped non-capitalist processes off of the map of our economic imaginations.

Co-operative Space

Co-operatives are member-owned, democratically controlled enterprises guided by co-operative values and principles. They differ from capitalist businesses in (1) ownership and organizational structure, (2) principles and values, and (3) their very purposes for existing. Yet co-operatives and these axes of difference are largely absent from the very disciplines that should be studying and teaching them. They are ignored by most business and economics departments, as well as the popular media. They are often dismissed by activists holding deterministic views of global capitalist dominance, and are sometimes forgotten by cooperators themselves. Credit unions are mistaken for traditional capitalist banks and producer co-operatives confused with publically held corporations. This invisibility and misrecognition not only make co-operatives invisible; they also limit possibilities for co-operative development and inter-cooperation, and depoliticize the economy by obscuring real and possible alternatives. So, my work aims to broaden understanding and visibility of co-operatives in order to cultivate and extend what a clever marketing campaign has called “co-opportunities.”

Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives

Between December 2005 and February 2011, I conducted ethnographic researcher with the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives (VAWC), a co-operative federation owned by its nine member co-operatives in Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont. VAWC (www.valleyworker.org) cultivates co-operative spaces by drawing together and utilizing the resources of their co-operative businesses for mutual support, worker co-op development, and education. Member co-ops pay dues and contribute five percent of their annual surplus to a development fund managed and directed by the co-operatives. They employ some 70 worker–members and generate over seven million dollars in revenue. Significantly, they have increased employment and revenue over the last three years despite the economic downturn.

Establishing an active and effective co-operative federation was difficult: it required that each of the member cooperatives grapple with their own understanding of the international co-operative values and principles, that they come to see themselves as clear and viable alternatives to business as usual, and that they identify as part of a broader movement. For several years VAWC organizers explored visions, built trust, and developed a mission through consensus. This was a complicated process, as the group was continually discovering and reaching out to worker co-operatives who hadn’t initially been involved in the conversation. Early on, VAWC didn’t know that their region was home to 11 of the estimated 400 worker co-operatives in the US. Worker co-operatives in our region were as invisible to each other as they had been to the rest of the world. One of the key challenges at this early stage was deciding who formed part of the regional worker co-operative community.

Who’s on the Map?

The question of who and what was VAWC was on the table for years, but one definitive moment in establishing VAWC’s identity was the production of a map. I’m a geographer, so you can imagine how my ears tingled and pen twitched during conversations about the map. I had done a lot of thinking about conceptual mappings of the economy and their effects in the world and how our economic imaginations, behaviors and policies are shaped by the boundaries of our economic representations. Rather than mapping the economy, VAWC endeavored to produce a map of worker co-operatives in the region. However, the process of deciding what and who would be on the VAWC map generated a series of other questions. Not all of the participants of VAWC were worker co-op members. Would the Co-operative Development Institute be on the map? How about the Co-operative Fund of New England? Cooperatively run, but not owned, student businesses? What about intentional communities in the area? Participants from each of these organizations were not members of worker co-operatives but they had been participating in meetings.

Opinions about who and what would be represented on the VAWC map—and who could eventually become a member—varied. Some participants who were not members of worker co-operatives wanted to be members in solidarity and they thought they had earned membership based upon their participation. Some who were members of worker co-operatives wanted to keep the movement inclusive but saw value in drawing a clear picture of worker ownership in the Valley. Excluding the nonprofit organizations of friends meant that feelings were at stake, but a consensus slowly emerged. They decided to include (only) worker co-operatives on the VAWC map. They wanted to make visible their realities as autonomous, member-owned, worker-governed enterprises. The VAWC map (and later their formal Member Agreement) would produce an identity for both themselves and the world to see. The project of producing the map was, in a sense, both realizing and revealing the hidden potential of VAWC. What “reality” did VAWC seek to “produce” in the making of this visual self-representation?

Challenging the image of an economic landscape understood as solely capitalist, VAWC member co-operatives literally put alternative economies—and their existence, practices, values, principles, and effects—on the map. The “reality” both revealed and realized by the VAWC map is a complete reversal of the usual picture. It is a reality in which worker co-operatives in our region exist. Their existence is of central concern on this map that facilitates navigation from one worker co-operative to the next. Indeed, one won’t find a capitalist enterprise on this rendering of co-operative space. They considered the effect of excluding nonprofit allies, but ultimately wanted to highlight the power of worker co-operation.

Reflecting the VAWC mapping exercise back onto academia raises a number of important questions. Like VAWC, we grapple (or perhaps should grapple) with representations of “the economy” that—like maps—are themselves productive of certain kinds of realities. How do the stories we produce about the economy shape economic identities and the economy as it is “on the ground”? How do we decide what and who to represent, which dynamics to grant causal force and which to reduce to passivity? What is the purpose of our theories and what are the activities they facilitate? Who and what is “in”? Who and what is “out”? Who and what counts in our economic representations?

Janelle Cornwell completed her PhD in geography at the University of Massachusetts. She is currently collaborating with VAWC staff and another researcher on a book about worker co-operatives and co-operative development in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts and Southern Vermont.

via Anthropology-News http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/01/10/whos-on-the-map/