Search

While the social economy can achieve many positive outcomes, one recent benefit is that it can be a route to Indigenous food sovereignty--a restorative framework for feeding communities and engaging in decolonization. This article examines how some Indigenous groups in Canada use the social economy to build food sovereignty, beginning with an overview of cultural relationships with food, its place in an Indigenous worldview, and the effect of colonization on Indigenous foodways. After introducing food sovereignty, and in particular Indigenous food sovereignty, it focuses on how some Indigenous communities are using the social economy to build food sovereignty, using the example of the Northern Manitoba Food, Culture, and Community Collaborative. The article concludes with a discussion of the importance of community and food sovereignty, not only for Indigenous Peoples but also for the social economy itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper reports on alternative food procurement initiatives in Canadian Indigenous communities. Like many communities around the world, they have experienced the ‘nutrition transition’ toward nutritionally compromised industrial food, with debilitating results. Much of this change in nutritional status has been created by a lethal combination of self-serving government policy and predatory corporate practice that ghettoizes Indigenous communities within a for-profit pseudo-food system. To find solutions to the colonially structured food deserts imposed on them, many Indigenous communities have turned to the social economy, initiating projects such as community gardens, greenhouses, and co-operatives. While largely unrecognized in the wider world, these initiatives are created and managed by communities, for the benefit of communities, giving us a deeper understanding of what place-based food systems can accomplish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief article explores two key questions that have emerged for the social economy in the COVID-19 context: 1) the nature of the relationship between social economy actors and the State, and 2) the possibility for social transformation going forward. This article engages with a dialogue entitled "Autonomous Community Action and Its Transformational Potential at a Territorial Level: An Ongoing Dialogue Between Research and Practice.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to examine social enterprises in Ontario, Canada, as part of the "Social Enterprises Models in Canada" research of the International Comparative Social Enterprise Models (ICSEM) Project. The report presents an analysis of the historical, contextual, and conceptual understanding of social enterprises in Ontario. Five cases studies illustrate social enterprise models, and the article then presents the main institutions in Ontario related to social enterprises, describing legal framework, public policies, university institutions, networks, spaces, and funding agencies and programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which focuses on legislative, conceptual, and social enterprise models related to creation of social enterprise in Canada.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Nonprofit & Social Economy Research / Revue canadienne de recherche sur les OSBL et l'économie sociale is the property of CISP Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cooperative food systems are based in cooperation, encourage inclusion, reconnect farmers and consumers, champion the local, and support more environmentally sustainable food systems. This exploratory research proposes a new economic framework for strategizing how to strengthen cooperative food systems. It also presents the example of a cooperative food system emerging in Ontario, Canada, the Local Organic Food Co-ops (LOFC) Network, to illustrate how to use the framework, drawing on the experience of the third author, who is the animator of the Network. Applying this analytical tool to the LOFC shows that the sixth cooperative principle - cooperation among cooperatives - is crucial for the viability of the Network, along with alliances and education. It also highlights the strength of horizontal linkages and the importance of leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the current climate of rapacious neo-liberal economic expansion and increasingly globalized public protest, the social economy tradition has again emerged as an important nodal paint for practical and theoretical socio-economic debate and action. However, as recent scholarship makes clear, there is no dear consensus on what this phrase means or the social and political role that this sector of society should play, given current conditions. This paper suggests an answer to both of these questions by focusing on and reworking the "radical/Utopian" stream of theorizing within the social economy discourse. It concludes that, unless the social economy movement recognizes the importance of reintegrating a "life-world" politics into its economic vision, it will increasingly be used by government as the low- or no-cost alternative to state-funded social welfare. If this is allowed to happen the social economy will be relegated to an unofficial support/monitoring branch of government/neo-liberal economic restructuring and, consequently, it will perpetuate the conditions which it has always been envisioned to challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the factors of success for nonprofit organizations and social economy.