This seminar brings together some of the cutting edge research on the link between sustainability and alternative forms of capitalist organisations drawing on cases from Greece, South Africa and Scotland. Speakers: Professor Maria Daskalaki, Roehampton University “Post-Capitalist organizing and sustainable organizational forms: Towards self-reproducing alternatives.”Dr Sian Stephens, Middlesex University, London “The Social License to Operate in the Wind Industry: Comparing ownership structure and national context in a South African and a Scottish Windfarm.
Professor Maria Daskalaki, Roehampton University “Post-Capitalist organizing and sustainable organizational forms: Towards self-reproducing alternatives.” This talk reflects on solidarity economy initiatives that emerged in response to the Global Financial crisis of 2008 and to explore their capacity to constitute practices with transformative potential for ethical and sustainable organizing. In Greece many spontaneous initiatives sprung up in response to the crisis and austerity-induced reductions in services. These include social enterprises with truly collaborative and radical arrangements between users and providers of services, partnerships with private and voluntary organizations. Such initiatives, often driven by necessity, give rise to value-driven alternatives including the re-appearance of the co-operative movement and worker-owned enterprises (Kokkinidis, 2014; Daskalaki and Kokkinidis, 2018; Daskalaki, Fotaki & Sotiropoulou, 2018) and the emergence of entirely new fields with socially transformative potentialities. The areas we reflect upon to better understand the processes and outcomes of such transformative responses include: How alternative organizational forms challenge dominant discourses of economic growth, consumerism and neoliberalism that are at the core of an unsustainable society? How alternatives co-produce collective practices and collective values for the provision of the basic needs of everyday life? Do such values lead to ethical forms of organizing and if so, are they sustainable? Dr Sian Stephens, Middlesex University, London “The Social License to Operate in the Wind Industry: Comparing ownership structure and national context in a South African and a Scottish Windfarm.” Drawing on comparative qualitative research conducted in South Africa and Scotland the presentation will focus on the partial community ownership of a wind farm in South Africa, the impact of this on the community engagement initiatives of the project and the bestowal of the 'Social License to Operate' (as evidenced by good relationships between the wind farm and its stakeholders, and the lack of local opposition). The connection between ownership structure, community engagement, and social license to operate in this context will be considered in comparison with a Scottish wind farm with a more traditional private ownership structure. Panel organised by the Alternative Organisations and Transformative Practices Research Cluster, Middlesex University Business School. Chaired by: Dr Nico Pizzolato and Dr Daniel Ozarow (Cluster coordinators) Coffee and refreshments provided. Seminar funded by Middlesex University Business School.
