Letter of Intent
Social cohesion is about membership: citizenship in a state, residency in a geographic community, participation in a network or a culture. The nature of membership is, however, an under-examined topic. What are the reciprocal rights and obligations of membership—and what are the mechanisms—through which shared identities are intentionally and voluntarily constructed in an age of globalization? The research proposed here will answer these questions by looking at a group of organizations that are both significant but also—because formal and well defined—manageable for research purposes.
Nearly half of Canadians belong to co-operatives, which are typically locally-based institutions, rooted in communities that are, in many cases, stressed and challenged by change. The co-operative model is widespread but also diverse in its forms, and in the kinds of communities in which it operates. Comparative study of co-operatives will highlight the dynamics of membership in fast-changing urban communities, in mixed rural/urban regions, in Aboriginal communities, and in newly forming networks created through the Internet.
Shared membership confirms and sometimes creates a shared identity. This common identity may be of greater or lesser intensity, with more or less frequent or numerous connections between members. Depending on its strength, such a common identity may work against the general undermining of the community by forces associated with globalization and market change.
Co-operatives are especially significant in the study of globalization and cohesion because they straddle the boundary between market and society. As participants in production, processing, distribution, and consumption, co-operatives are bound up with market processes. At the same time, co-operatives are microcosms of society, containing many of the political, social, and economic elements that are found in the larger milieu. As primarily local organizations, rooted in communities, co-operatives are among the first organizations to feel the effects of globalization and new technologies. In co-operatives, researchers and policy makers can clearly see the impact of technological, economic, and social changes on membership and social cohesion. Co-operatives provide exceptional research grounds for understanding the importance of membership to social cohesion under the influences of globalization.
Research Objectives
The proposed research will examine specific instances where member-based voluntary organizations attempt to create social cohesion. It will isolate the practical approaches such organizations can use to better fulfill the potential of membership under current conditions, as well as provide concrete policy recommendations for public agencies that deal with member-based organizations or are concerned with social cohesion. This proposal has grown out of the Centre's past discussions and extensive dealings with member-based organizations, a fact that demonstrates the timeliness of the research and the strong foundation for engaged research partnerships. Close working relationships with individual co-operatives, governmental organizations, and co-operative associations cultivated throughout the development and course of the research will also contribute to the timely dissemination of research findings and help to ensure the relevance of the research.
This strategic research proposal is conceptualized as a team-based interdisciplinary project. Four clusters, or study areas (consumer identities in urban communities, co-operatives and Aboriginal culture, membership and regional identities, and information technology and the redefinition of community) have been selected in which to explore the aspects of membership and social cohesion through four common themes: culture and discourse, member experience, values, and social capital. These clusters, analysed and compared in terms of these unifying and crosscutting themes, will provide a rich body of research with sufficient breadth and depth from which to draw significant conclusions.
Why Membership?
Social cohesion can be conceptualized as a reflection of the frequency, quality, and intensity of identities shared among people. Multiple dimensions of shared identity, and strongly experienced shared identities, are essential factors in social cohesion and the formation of communities.
Among the ways in which identities are created or re-created, member-based voluntary organizations are of special interest. Such organizations are both rational and social responses to needs; frequently they directly address pressures on communities, and typically they embody and build cohesion among members by doing so.
The role of membership has been undervalued by governments. Fiscal restraint has led to a concentration on efficient service delivery such that even when governments work with or formulate policy that concerns organizations, they tend to neglect the membership dynamics and potential positive spin-offs, in terms of social cohesion, that may result from a culture of membership and participation. Health-services reforms, municipal-government and school-governance reforms, and policies dealing with community-economic-development organizations all reflect an emphasis on administration rather than participation.
Fundamentally, co-operatives are based on a duality between association and enterprise—this is indeed the best short definition of a co-op. There is a parallel to John Ralston Saul's observation that Canadians are moving from thinking of themselves as citizens to thinking of themselves as consumers or taxpayers. In co-operatives, member-owners are asked to commit to group objectives and share in a group identity, exercising membership and control responsibly in a role analogous to political citizenship. Simultaneously they must think and act as consumers, producers, or employees in drawing on the co-operative's services. How well co-operative members negotiate these conflicting roles is a case study in miniature of the citizen-consumer dichotomy.
Why Co-operatives?
Co-operatives are of particular significance among member-based organizations because they operate primarily in the economic sphere—within the market itself, which is seen as one of the forces undermining old identities. Co-operatives can be expected to be loci where conflicting market and community identities, self-interest and group interest, short-term and long-term needs, become apparent and are worked out.
Co-operatives are the largest and best-organized component of the formal voluntary sector in Canada, and the main component that straddles the boundary between society and the economy. More than 14 million Canadians are members of co-operatives (chiefly credit unions and caisses populaires, although in sectors such as agriculture they have exceptional importance) that control over $126 billion in assets. Co-operatives are a large, well-defined area of research, with formal institutions and highly developed federations and networks spanning the range from local to international organizations. This offers the further advantage of clearly identified nongovernmental partners for the proposed research. These partners have the interest and resources to assist with the research, and to put research findings into action.
Project Activities
As mentioned previously, this strategic research proposal is based on an interdisciplinary team approach. Much of the research will be conducted concurrently by experienced research teams based in various universities across Canada engaged in active partnerships with organizations from the co-operative sector. Four clusters, or study areas, will be examined using a group of recurring and unifying themes that focus on significant issues of social cohesion and membership under the pressures of globalization.
CLUSTERS
The clusters, or study areas, are currently conceptualized as large case studies or interrelated groups of case studies, encompassing provincial and regional, national, and international study environments. They are in essence the groups or communities from which data on identity, membership, and cohesion will be collected. These clusters were chosen to complement each other by including urban and rural environments, as well as critical concerns such as ethnicity, culture, regional identity, and technological change. Each cluster will be analysed in terms of culture and values, studied with discourse analysis and examined in terms of member perceptions, with implications drawn for co-operatives and for public policy with respect to that type of environment. Together they offer areas of study that include a variety of sectors, communities, regions, and issues, rich enough to provide satisfying answers to the questions around each theme. The first phase of research will consist of concretely identifying approximately four clusters for intensive work, based on the nature and extent of the resources available. The four we currently propose are as follows:
Consumer Identities in Urban Communities
Consumption and urban culture are two of the spheres in which the fracturing of social cohesion should be most evident under the impact of globalization. Accordingly, a study of consumer co-operatives in rapidly urbanizing, and densely urban settings, should clearly highlight pressures, as well as the potential responsiveness of the co-op model. This cluster will study two of the most interesting urban co-operatives: Calgary Co-operative Association and Mountain Equipment Co-operative. Located in one of Canada's most booming, market-oriented, and entrepreneurial cities, Calgary Co-operative Association is one of North America's largest local consumer co-ops. In contrast, Mountain Equipment Co-operative is a large, urban, member-based organization that gathers membership not limited by locale, but based on product and lifestyle interests. This cluster will include case studies from the Alberta/British Columbia region.
Co-operatives and Aboriginal Cultures
Aboriginal self-governance and social-economic development are critical issues in Canada and pose special opportunities and challenges for social cohesion. Aboriginal identities and self-government strategies will be explored within this cluster, along with an investigation of the role member-based organizations may play in uniting Aboriginal people, bringing together different Aboriginal cultures, or creating shared identities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Using existing and newly forming co-operatives, this study will explore the relationship between issues of leadership tension and differentiation within Aboriginal communities, and the role of co-operative structures. This research will examine the relationships among identities, culture, and membership in an effort to understand the successes and challenges of many northern Aboriginal co-operatives. It will also identify new member-based initiatives in Aboriginal communities in other parts of the country around urgent community issues such as self-determination, wealth creation, housing, and social services. Working within a wide geographic swath, from Québec to British Columbia, this cluster may also include international comparative examples from Australia.
Membership and Multi-Community, Regional Identities
There has been considerable study of rural co-operatives, but less examination of how some co-operatives negotiate and create new identities by crossing rural-urban social divides. Many credit and consumer co-operatives operate regional branch systems that incorporate mid-size cities as well as surrounding towns and regions. A study of membership, identity, and marketing in such a co-operative would illuminate the extent to which co-operatives can help resolve divisions, foster resolution and compromise, and create new, more cohesive, regional identities among people. This cluster will focus on the Prince Albert area of north-central Saskatchewan, the Interlake region of Manitoba, and possibly central Québec and/or rural Nova Scotia, depending on interests of our research collaborators and guidance from our partners. Each of these areas offer social cohesion and membership-study settings with strong ethnic, social, cultural, and regional identities.
Information Technology and the Co-operative Redefinition of Community
One possible mechanism for creating new kinds of communities, and potentially, new mechanisms of social cohesion, lies in the Internet and the information technologies related to the growing knowledge-based economy. These changes have considerable effect on social cohesion issues. Virtual communities may bring globally dispersed individuals and associations together in new formations, and local organizations may extend their connections globally, expanding markets, changing definitions of networks, altering the nature of work, and the processes of democracy. Co-operatives are at a critical juncture in understanding the impact of information technology on social cohesion and the nature of communities. With the recent approval of the new, restricted ".coop" top level domain name (TLD), co-operatives worldwide and in all sectors have the opportunity to participate in the creation of a new type of community. The explicit attempt to create an alternative to the ".com" (commercial top level domain name) standard will open new avenues for co-op marketing, alter the global network of co-ops, and affect the understanding of membership, organizational culture, and group identity. The nature and extent of these changes will provide invaluable contributions to understanding the impact of globalization on social cohesion. As part of the strategic research proposed here, we will research the general discourse and use of the new ".coop" TLD as well as specific applications in Canada and implications for Canadian institutions and policy makers.
THEMES
Each cluster will be analysed through the lenses and methods of the four strategic research themes outlined below. Research methodologies will include the appropriate combination of the following range of study methods: content analysis, surveys, interviews with key informants, focus groups, case studies and self-study, participatory research, and action research techniques.
Culture and Discourse
The culture of groups or organizations is both historically conditioned and constantly re-created in contemporary contexts. This theme will examine how historical and invented identities in each cluster area interact and merge, and how notions of shared membership and identity are constructed and communicated. Cultures of organizations interact with other cultures, and with gender and Aboriginal identities. This interaction is of critical importance as we attempt to understand the ways in which membership contributes to social cohesion. Discourse analysis drawn from cultural studies will be applied to the information, education, advertising, meetings, and design of co-operative associations in order to pinpoint the messages and subtexts employed by co-operatives in communicating with their members. This analysis will be critical and comparative, highlighting what works best and what does not, particularly in the sense of creating cohesion and shared identity among members.
Member Experience and Perception
The experience and perceptions of members will be the focus of this theme. Key questions will include: How much are individuals affected by the common identity or values of a group they voluntarily join? How are the benefits of membership perceived? Why do individuals join such organizations, and how do they demonstrate and understand member commitment and renewal? The subjective experience of members has rarely been directly studied; results here will provide insight into the nature of membership and will be of significant value to all member-based organizations. Survey and focus-group techniques, as well as participant research methods drawn from the social sciences—particularly marketing and sociology—will be used to examine, in each case studied, the actual experience of cohesion or of its absence.
Values
Values are in many respects the key qualities connecting members to shared and cohesive identities. How values are put into practice in organizations, especially in businesses, is fundamental to assessing how cohesion can be created in the face of globalization. For example, is membership in one co-operative conducive to membership in, and support for, other co-operatives or voluntary organizations? This dimension of social cohesion is relevant for understanding the nature and impact of co-operative organizations from the perspective of policy recommendation for areas concerned with social cohesion. It also has implications for the marketing strategies of co-operatives and other member-based or voluntary organizations. The sociology of membership and the multiple dimensions of membership will be key in pursuing this research theme.
Social Capital
The networks of relationships, obligations, and associations that are created in member-based organizations contribute to the formation and growth of social capital—an essential ingredient for social cohesion. As democratic, member-based organizations, co-operatives provide opportunities for member involvement, education, democratic participation, and civic engagement. The social capital created by co-operative membership can be drawn on for other community projects, and vice versa. It is important in this regard to assess the degree of cross-connectedness between membership in one organization and involvement in wider activities and relationships. Analysing this interconnectedness is part of a larger methodological issue of how social capital can be measured (and mobilized). Our research findings will have implications for how community organizations employ and foster social capital, and for the development of policy dealing with these organizations.
Partnerships
Each cluster requires the willing participation of partner organizations from the corresponding area of study. We propose to make the partners active in each cluster through both formal and informal research arrangements, funding in cash and in-kind, and through a steering or advisory council related to each cluster. These active partnerships will provide direct input into the direction of the research; they will also serve as a direct conduit for the dissemination of research findings. In addition, the workshops and conferences within each cluster, as well as the capstone activities at the end, will be designed to bring together approximately one-half academics/researchers and one-half representatives of the partner organizations and communities. Because of the policy implications of the research, we anticipate inviting representatives of relevant federal, provincial, and Aboriginal governments to join the advisory councils. These mechanisms are envisaged both as ways to enrich and guide the results, and also as ways to speed the translation of research findings into practice.
This proposal has grown out of the Centre's past discussions with member-based organizations, demonstrating that these questions are timely and confirming the interest of research partners. We are in an excellent position to realize these partnerships because many of the organizations concerned are already linked to us as long-term sponsors, clients, or interested publics. Others (such as Aboriginal scholars and organizations) have been recent partners in other research initiatives.
We anticipate that the outcomes of this study will include the following: