Title
Subjects of Scale / Spaces of Possibility: Producing Co-operative Space in Theory and Enterprise
Date of Award
9-2011
Document type
dissertation
Access Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Geosciences
First Advisor
Eve Vogel
Second Advisor
Katherine Gibson
Third Advisor
Krista Harper
Subject Categories
Earth Sciences
Abstract
This dissertation addresses key questions raised in Human Geography and Economic Geography concerning scale and the production of space, alternative economic geographies and co-operative economic development. It is the product of a five year ethnographic investigation with co-operative enterprises in Western Massachusetts and the broader Connecticut River Valley of Western New England. It explores neglected questions about how subjects are producing co-operative economic identities, enterprises and development strategies amid capitalist cultural dominance; and how structural, financial and governmental aspects of their enterprises participate in cultivating the desire and capacity to expand co-operative space. In line with poststructuralist feminist perspectives within and outside the disciplines of Human and Economic Geography, each chapter challenges ontological presumptions often made about the economy, scale, power and size and offers theoretical contributions based upon empirical research with co-operative enterprises.The three chapters of this dissertation explore the co-production of co-operative space and subjects; the "practices of scale" in the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives; and co-operative development in a regional context. They challenge the presumptions that space and economy are (and must be) structured by capitalism; power is constituted by hierarchy, size and "scale"; and subjects and subjectivity are insignificant to the project of constructive development. Contrary to structuralist critiques of worker co-operatives based upon size, political conservatism and vulnerability, I argue that worker owned enterprises empower workers despite capitalist cultural dominance and relative size.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/2387433
Recommended Citation
Cornwell, Janelle Terese, "Subjects of Scale / Spaces of Possibility: Producing Co-operative Space in Theory and Enterprise" (2011). Open Access Dissertations. 436.
https://doi.org/10.7275/2387433
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/436