This seminar aims to explore tentative pathways for a post-growth transformation enabled by cooperative practices. As a point of departure, we will engage with the concept of open cooperativism, seeking to synthesise elements of the cooperative movement and the social and solidarity economy, on one hand, with innovative practices of the digital commons, on the other. Amidst ever-increasing precariousness and intensification of work, driven by growth-based processes of individualisation, automation and algorithmic management, open cooperativism seeks to reinvigorate the social security and solidarity mechanisms hitherto associated with traditional employment, by empowering autonomous and self-employed workers through shared infrastructures and commoning practices, aligned with the common good. Through paradigmatic case studies we will attempt to illustrate ways that the sought synthesis may be operationalised in situated contexts, while identifying patterns that may enable a broader post-growth transformation.
An open discussion will follow, where participants will be invited to reflect upon further organisations, initiatives, and projects that may be interpreted through the open cooperativism lens and unveil how digital commons practices can inspire us to empower autonomous work, while creating the conditions for deeper socio-ecological transformation.