This volume explores where, how and why the cooperative model is having a distinctive, transformational impact in driving socio-economic changes in a post-pandemic 21st century world. Drawing from a diverse range of examples, the book sheds light on how today’s cooperatives and a co-operative way of organising might serve new societal demands. It examines organisational structures and governance models that develop socio-economic resilience in cooperatives. The book’s contributors reveal how the very pursuit of cooperative values and principles challenges market fundamentalism and promotes participatory democracy. This is a timely contribution to recent debates around transformative economies and an invaluable resource for scholars and activists interested in alternative ways of organising.

Through a deep examination of what has become known as the 'Preston Model', this book explores an innovative approach to local economic development that utilises economic democratisation to realise both social and economic objectives. The first part of the book examines the main strands of the Preston Model framework and what makes it different to other urban regeneration schemes: the combination of local anchor institution procurement to generate and retain local wealth, and the development of cooperatives to fill gaps in local supply chains. The chapters in this section consider the Preston Model as viewed through different lenses: politics and society, community, economics, democracy, trade unionism, language and communication, education and transferability. The second part explores the influences and applications of the Preston Model, in theory and practice, in selected locations and various circumstances worldwide. This includes discussion of key ideas such as economic democracy, social enterprise and the creation of capacity for cooperative self-government, alongside essays on prominent international examples of similar approaches, which can inform and in turn be informed by the Preston Model. This book is essential reading for those interested in regional and national policy, economic democracy and alternative economic and political ideas.

The idea of social dreaming argues that dreams are relevant to the wider social sphere and have a collective resonance that goes beyond the personal narrative. In this fascinating collection, the principles of social dreaming are explored to uncover shared anxieties and prejudices, suggest likely responses, enhance cultural surveys, inform managerial policies and embody community affiliation. Including, for the first time, a coherent epistemology to support the theoretical principles of the field, the book reflects upon and extends the theory and philosophy behind the method, as well as discussing new research in the area, and how social dreaming practice is conducted in a range of localities, situations and circumstances. The book will appeal to anyone interested in the idea that social dreaming can help us to delve deeper into the question of what it means to be human, from psychoanalysts to sociologists and beyond.

Images are inscribed in the memory more easily than words, and some remain with the viewer for a lifetime. Combining hindsight, insight and foresight, the chapters in this book turn a spotlight onto various aspects of health, social work and socially engaged arts practice. The visual imagination is evoked in this book to help practitioners see beneath the surface of contentious and problematic issues facing human services today. Risk assessment, child sexual abuse, work-life balance, old age, dementia, substance misuse, recovery, sex work, homelessness, isolation, biography, death and dying, grief, loss, vulnerability, care, and the function of the museum as a preserver of memory, all come under the sustained gaze and examination of the contributors. Grounded in the arts and humanities, the visual sense as a gateway to empathy is explored throughout these chapters. References are included to visual art, curating dramatic performance, poetry, film, dance, photography, diary entries, and public exhibitions. In an age when people increasingly compose their lives by staring into various screens, this book celebrates the visual modality that can humanise services with 'human-seeings'. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Social Work Practice.

Through a deep examination of what has become known as the 'Preston Model', this book explores an innovative approach to local economic development that utilises economic democratisation to realise both social and economic objectives. The first part of the book examines the main strands of the Preston Model framework and what makes it different to other urban regeneration schemes: the combination of local anchor institution procurement to generate and retain local wealth, and the development of cooperatives to fill gaps in local supply chains. The chapters in this section consider the Preston Model as viewed through different lenses: politics and society, community, economics, democracy, trade unionism, language and communication, education and transferability. The second part explores the influences and applications of the Preston Model, in theory and practice, in selected locations and various circumstances worldwide. This includes discussion of key ideas such as economic democracy, social enterprise and the creation of capacity for cooperative self-government, alongside essays on prominent international examples of similar approaches, which can inform and in turn be informed by the Preston Model. This book is essential reading for those interested in regional and national policy, economic democracy and alternative economic and political ideas.

This book describes a way of sharing dreams in a group, called 'social dreaming'. It explores how the sharing of real, night time dreams, in a group, can offer information on and insight into ourselves and the worlds we live in and share. It investigates how we can turn dream images, and ideas and feelings that arise from these images, into conscious thought, before describing the ways in which these can be used. Using a background of the psychosocial combined with a philosophical lens influenced by the work of Gilles Deleuze, Julian Manley shows how social dreaming can be understood as a Deleuzian 'rhizome of affects', a web or a root design where things interconnect in a random and spontaneous fashion rather than in a sequential or linear way. He illustrates how social dreaming can link dreams together into a collage of images, and compares this to the rhizome, where clusters of emotional intensity - which emerge from the dream images - weave and interconnect with other clusters, forming a web of interlinked dream images and emotions. From the basis of this rhizome emerges an interpretation of social dreaming as a 'body without organs' and the social dreaming matrix as a 'smooth space' where meanings emerge from the way these images form connections, and come and go according to our emotions at any particular moment.

The idea of social dreaming argues that dreams are relevant to the wider social sphere and have a collective resonance that goes beyond the personal narrative. In this fascinating collection, the principles of social dreaming are explored to uncover shared anxieties and prejudices, suggest likely responses, enhance cultural surveys, inform managerial policies and embody community affiliation. Including, for the first time, a coherent epistemology to support the theoretical principles of the field, the book reflects upon and extends the theory and philosophy behind the method, as well as discussing new research in the area, and how social dreaming practice is conducted in a range of localities, situations and circumstances. The book will appeal to anyone interested in the idea that social dreaming can help us to delve deeper into the question of what it means to be human, from psychoanalysts to sociologists and beyond.

Images are inscribed in the memory more easily than words, and some remain with the viewer for a lifetime. Combining hindsight, insight and foresight, the chapters in this book turn a spotlight onto various aspects of health, social work and socially engaged arts practice. The visual imagination is evoked in this book to help practitioners see beneath the surface of contentious and problematic issues facing human services today. Risk assessment, child sexual abuse, work-life balance, old age, dementia, substance misuse, recovery, sex work, homelessness, isolation, biography, death and dying, grief, loss, vulnerability, care, and the function of the museum as a preserver of memory, all come under the sustained gaze and examination of the contributors. Grounded in the arts and humanities, the visual sense as a gateway to empathy is explored throughout these chapters. References are included to visual art, curating dramatic performance, poetry, film, dance, photography, diary entries, and public exhibitions. In an age when people increasingly compose their lives by staring into various screens, this book celebrates the visual modality that can humanise services with 'human-seeings'. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Social Work Practice.

This book describes a way of sharing dreams in a group, called 'social dreaming'. It explores how the sharing of real, night time dreams, in a group, can offer information on and insight into ourselves and the worlds we live in and share. It investigates how we can turn dream images, and ideas and feelings that arise from these images, into conscious thought, before describing the ways in which these can be used. Using a background of the psychosocial combined with a philosophical lens influenced by the work of Gilles Deleuze, Julian Manley shows how social dreaming can be understood as a Deleuzian 'rhizome of affects', a web or a root design where things interconnect in a random and spontaneous fashion rather than in a sequential or linear way. He illustrates how social dreaming can link dreams together into a collage of images, and compares this to the rhizome, where clusters of emotional intensity - which emerge from the dream images - weave and interconnect with other clusters, forming a web of interlinked dream images and emotions. From the basis of this rhizome emerges an interpretation of social dreaming as a 'body without organs' and the social dreaming matrix as a 'smooth space' where meanings emerge from the way these images form connections, and come and go according to our emotions at any particular moment.