Communication that fosters collective action is considered a key driver of transformational change. This study explores the role that cooperatives could play in transforming the current unsustainable food system toward sustainability. The focal point of the study is how communication processes of nonprofit cooperative forms of collective action can optimize their transformative capacity and, in a wider context, contribute to agricultural transformation. The study addresses former research on transformation, in particular on how transformation is triggered at local level. To assess how transformation can be stimulated in practice, the case of a new food cooperative – Farming Communities, a grassroots initiative in the south of the Netherlands – is investigated. Farming Communities serves as an example of an innovative form of food production and illustrates how collective action and connective action come about through interaction. Collective action, depending on the quality and the results of interaction, is fostered by acknowledged vertical and horizontal interdependence and a certain level of trust. Interaction dynamics for collective action can enhance transformative capacity by emergent new ways of doing, knowing, framing, and organizing. Furthermore, the concept of connective action is introduced, which entails interaction dynamics among individuals who share ideas and opinions via networked technologies. Connective action can overcome the fragility of a single local initiative and is suitable for enhancing the transformative capacity of a grassroots initiative. However, a surplus of connection action could hamper the robustness of collective action. Cooperatives are therefore challenged to find a fruitful balance between collective action and connective action.
In line with discursive psychology’s re-specification of psychological categories as discursive practices, this chapter focuses on everyday mobilisation as social action. We analyse online communication on Facebook Event pages of local social movements, designed to mobilise for political gatherings such as demonstrations. The aim of the chapter is to explore how language is used to make available the social action of mobilizing for collective events such as demonstrations. In addition to other perspectives on the role of language in mobilisation, the discursive psychological perspective takes into account both the rhetorical and the interactional features of online calls for collective action participation. Members of social movements construct calls for participation in collective action as appropriate or fair by carefully managing their reasonableness. In dit hoofdstuk wordt alledaagse mobilisatie behandeld als een sociale handeling, vanuit een discursief-psychologisch perspectief. Dit perspectief herformuleert psychologische categorieën als discursieve praktijken. We analyseren online communicatie op Facebook Event pagina’s van sociale bewegingen, die ontworpen zijn om mensen op te roepen deel te nemen aan bijeenkomsten zoals demonstraties. Het doel van dit hoofdstuk is in kaart te brengen hoe taal wordt gebruikt om mobilisatie voor collectieve gebeurtenissen mogelijk te maken. In aanvulling op andere perspectieven op de rol van taal in mobilisatie, wordt gekeken naar de interactionele en retorische aspecten van oproepen tot deelname aan collectieve acties. Leden van sociale bewegingen construeren de motieven voor deze oproepen als redelijk en weerleggen daarmee het idee dat ze handelen uit activistische motieven.
Over the last two decades, institutions for higher education such as universities and colleges have rapidly expanded and as a result have experienced profound changes in processes of research and organization. However, the rapid expansion and change has fuelled concerns about issues such as educators' technology professional development. Despite the educational value of emerging technologies in schools, the introduction has not yet enjoyed much success. Effective use of information and communication technologies requires a substantial change in pedagogical practice. Traditional training and learning approaches cannot cope with the rising demand on educators to make use of innovative technologies in their teaching. As a result, educational institutions as well as the public are more and more aware of the need for adequate technology professional development. The focus of this paper is to look at action research as a qualitative research methodology for studying technology professional development in HE in order to improve teaching and learning with ICTs at the tertiary level. The data discussed in this paper have been drawn from a cross institutional setting at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. The data were collected and analysed according to a qualitative approach.
Denim Democracy from the Alliance for Responsible Denim (ARD) is an interactive exhibition that celebrates the journey and learning of ARD members, educates visitors about sustainable denim and highlights how companies collaborate together to achieve results. Through sight, sound and tactile sensations, the visitor experiences and fully engages sustainable denim production. The exhibition launches in October 2018 in Amsterdam and travels to key venues and locations in the Netherlands until April 2019. As consumers, we love denim but the denim industry, like other sub-sectors in the textile, apparel and footwear industries, faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project brought leading denim brands, suppliers and stakeholders together to collectively address these issues and take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production. Sustainability challenges are considered very complex and economically undesirable for individual companies to address alone. In denim, small and medium sized denim firms face specific challenges, such as lower economies of scale and lower buying power to affect change in practices. There is great benefit in combining denim companies' resources and knowledge so that collective experimentation and learning can lift the sustainability standards of the industry and lead to the development of common standards and benchmarks on a scale that matters. If meaningful, transformative industrial change is to be made, then it calls for collaboration between denim industry stakeholders that goes beyond supplier-buyer relations and includes horizontal value chain collaboration of competing large and small denim brands. However collaboration between organizations, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to failure. The research behind the Alliance for Responsible Denim project asked a central research question: how do competitors effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability? To answer this question, we used a mixed-method, action research approach. The Alliance for Responsible Denim project mobilized and facilitated denim brands to collectively identify ways to reduce the use of water and chemicals in denim production and then aided them to implement these practices individually in their respective firms.
The denim industry faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been especially criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. Reducing resource use of water, chemicals and energy and changing denim production practices calls for collaboration between various stakeholders, including competing denim brands. There is great benefit in combining denim brands’ resources and knowledge so that commonly defined standards and benchmarks are developed and realized on a scale that matters. Collaboration however, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to fail. This project brings leading denim brands together to collectively take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production, particularly by establishing measurements, benchmarks and standards for resource use (e.g. chemicals, water, energy) and creating best practices for effective collaboration. The central research question of our project is: How do denim brands effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability in denim production? To answer this question, we will use a mixed-method, action research approach. The project’s research setting is the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA), which has a strong denim cluster and is home to many international denim brands and start-ups.
Agriculture; Macro-Micro-Macro perspective; Public goods and Public bads; Collective action; Commons; Opposite concerns; Farmers and Peasants; Anthropology
