The Martlet

Is it possible to have an economy for people instead of for profit? In a recession that has left many in the dust, the British Columbia Institute for Cooperative Studies (BCICS), is trying to find out.

The research center, located at UVic, has been serving the community for eight years now: educating, researching and providing resources for cooperatives.

“Especially because of the crisis we need an economy that works for the people,” said BCICS Director Ana Maria Peredo. 

Peredo says what’s needed is a community-based economy with the goal of providing for the needs of the group without profit getting in the way. Peredo says this is a way of “remaking the economy,” instead of allowing people to get caught up in what she calls “a false sense of prosperity,” which causes people to lose everything.

Peredo said what people need instead is a sense of community where the economy isn’t just about the money, but about the socialization. 

The community-based economy actively advances opportunity for capacity building and social cohesion, offering a more adaptive capacity to recover from economic, environmental, political and social crisis.

“Economy should be embedded in society, not separate,” said Peredo.

BCICS looks to provide a place for many forms of cooperation to occur, whether through food or work, or through meeting other social, economic or cultural needs.

The centre hopes that it can be a place for discussions about different forms of cooperation, social innovations and policies. They host forums, seminars, workshops and a monthly speaker series that features presentations by UVic academics, graduate students, visiting faculty and community practitioners discussing ideas and initiatives in cooperative economy from a range of disciplines and perspectives.

New to the institute this year is a Research Fellowship Program, which aims to create discussions about community-based economies.

“[The Research Fellowship Program will] build a community of researchers that are interested in learning about the ways in which people come together to provide for the community’s needs,” said Peredo.

Currently, the Community Research Fellowship has been awarded to a graduate student from UVic who is working to preserve the social economy in impoverished indigenous communities and to revitalize traditional ecological knowledge. 

One Community Research Fellowship has also been awarded to a member of the First Nations working group, who is currently working in fisheries and with the First Nations to share her effective methods of fishing during periods of low abundance.

Another program BCICS currently has is called the Graduate Research Fellowship. The program has volunteers working with organizations such as the Mustard Seed Street Church, the largest food bank on Vancouver Island. An anthropology graduate student from the University of Alberta is working on her thesis at the Mustard Seed Street Church and is working to try to influence the practices of food-relief in Victoria.