CREATING ALTERNATIVES WITHIN COOPERATIVES

Abstract

This article is an introduction to the special issue entitled: “Creating alternatives within cooperatives.” The aim of this issue is to show what takes place and what is at stake in these cooperative spaces that foster critique and alternative practices. Our aim is to provide a framework for thinking about the issues involved in creating alternatives within cooperative organizations. To do this, we begin by returning to the concept of creating a critical alternative to the Capitalocene. We use this concept to position cooperatives within a critique of capitalism as alternative organizations to this dominant system. We also take the time to define the notion of fabrication in its dual material and ideological sense. To do this, we integrate recent developments in critical currents around two terms: “alternative
organizing” and “prefigurative alternative organizing.” In the second part, we return to the issues, modalities, and practices through which the alternative takes shape, at two different levels of analysis: the organization and the territory.