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Cooperatives as Sustainable Livelihood Strategies in Rural Mexico
Author(s) -
KING ROBIN,
ADLER MARINA A.,
GRIEVES MARGARET
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
bulletin of latin american research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1470-9856
pISSN - 0261-3050
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-9856.2012.00796.x
Subject(s) - livelihood , grassroots , equity (law) , democracy , solidarity , politics , commons , economic growth , citizen journalism , political science , business , economics , agriculture , geography , archaeology , law
The sustainable livelihoods perspective and cooperative movement are rooted in frameworks that value social justice in the form of participatory democracy, distributional equity, and solidarity. Unlike studies of cooperatives that focus mainly on economic efficiency and productivity, we argue that this socio‐political dimension of the cooperative projects is crucial for understanding their potential as sustainable livelihoods. This exploratory research examines the experiences of two rural Mexican communities in Guanajuato and Oaxaca, which formed cooperatives as alternative livelihood strategies. Our results show that each community used similar grassroots political culture to develop cooperatives designed to meet local needs.