Readers able to get to Manchester for the 19th April might be
interested in the following event, to which you would be very
welcome. Postgraduate students would find the event particularly
stimulating.
To book a place call Pete North [log in to unmask] or Stuart
Wilks-Heeg, [log in to unmask]
ESRC Seminar Series: Capacity Building: Learning for Community
Economic Development
Seminar Three: Capacity-building and Community
Control of Local Economic Assets
Thursday, 19th April, 11am-3.30pm in Manchester
Salford University, Pankhurst Room, Research and Graduate College,
Faraday House.
The purpose of this seminar is to critically assess how examples of
community control of economic assets relate to wider notions of
capacity-building. In an era where accelerating economic globalisation
and declining faith in state intervention have prompted considerable
concern about the vulnerability of individual localities, interest in
community-based forms of economic organisation has grown
substantially. Indeed, while interest in these forms of organisation
was previously confined to small parts of the libertarian left, such
ideas have now found their way into the political mainstream,
principally via the notion of the 'third way'. While 'the third way'
remains too vaguely defined to inform a wider political project or,
even, individual policy initiatives, its stress on community
self-organisation opens up valuable space for discussion of forms of
economic control that exist somewhere on the continuum between pure
private and pure public ownership. In this regard, examples as diverse
as the co-operative movement, housing associations, credit unions,
LETS and sports clubs can be cited as historical and contemporary
evidence of the capacity of local communities and communities of
interest to build up, control and manage economic assets.
From a capacity-building perspective, important questions need to be
asked about such examples. Does community control of economic assets
represent an alternative form of economic organisation or merely a
fall-back when market or state provision fail? What does 'community
ownership' actually amount to? Do existing examples of community
ownership genuinely promote social inclusion and capacity-building
among local communities, or do they evidence exclusory dynamics and a
tendency to emerge in localities that already have considerable
community 'capacity' and other key resources. Should urban policy seek
to promote the spread of community economic ownership? And, if so, in
what forms? Can a revival of the notion of community economic
ownership form part of a progressive political project for the 21st
century, or will it remain a relatively peripheral example of economic
control? The seminar will seek to address these, and other, questions
through three particular examples of community ownership - credit
unions, land trusts and cinemas.
The Programme:
11.00 Welcome and introduction
Chair: Stuart Wilks-Heeg, SURF, University of Salford
11.15 Community ownership through Land Trusts)
James DeFillipis, University College London
12.15 Lunch
13.00 Chair: Pete North, LEPU, South Bank University
Mission Impossible? The Crosby Community Cinema and the Political
Economy of the Movies
Stuart Wilks-Heeg, University of Salford
14.00 Coffee
14.15 Community finance and capacity: Credit Unions)
Duncan Fuller, University of Northumbria
15.15 Summing up and conclusions
Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Salford University and Pete North, South Bank
University
_________________________________________
Peter North
Local Economy Policy Unit
South Bank University, London
Tel: 020 7815-7706
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.sbu.ac.uk/~lepu/
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