Developed within a network of Canadian researchers and their community partners, this book is a collection of case studies that explore the learning that people do through community engagement. The crucial work here explores learning that is organized by the learners themselves, collectively, rather than as individuals. Reflecting the contributors political priorities, the volume covers groups that are highly marginalized in our society and moves on to examine more mainstream citizens.

Developed within a network of Canadian researchers and their community partners, this book is a collection of case studies that explore the learning that people do through community engagement. The crucial work here explores learning that is organized by the learners themselves, collectively, rather than as individuals. Reflecting the contributors political priorities, the volume covers groups that are highly marginalized in our society and moves on to examine more mainstream citizens.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Eric Shragge and Jean-Marc Fontan
Tendencies, Tensions and Visions in the Social Economy

Chapter 2: Enzo Mingione
Market and Society: The Social Embeddedment of the Economy

Chapter 3: Michele Cangiani
About the Possibility of Reversing the Process of Commodification: The Scope of the Non-profit Economy

Chapter 4: Jack Quarter
The Social Economy and the Neo-Conservative Agenda

Chapter 5: Paul Leduc Browne
The Neo-Liberal Uses of the Social Economy: Non-Profit Organizations and Workfare in Ontario

Chapter 6: Andrea Levy
Jobs, Work, and the Social Economy

Chapter 7: Kathryn Church
Alternative Economies: Building the Social from the Economic

Chapter 8: Benoit Levesque and Bill Ninacs
The Social Economy in Canada: The Quebec Experience

Chapter 9: Bill Ninacs
Social Economy: A Practitioner's Viewpoint

Chapter 10: Jean-Luc Souchet
The Mutual Insurance System in Loire-Atlantic: Ten Generations of Supportive Innovations

Chapter 11: Louis Favreau
Globalization and the Social Economy: A North-South Perspective

Chapter 12: Michael Toye
Selected Resources on the Social Economy

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Eric Shragge teaches social policy and community organization at the School of Social Work, McGill University. He is the editor of "Community Economic Development: In Search of Empowerment," (Black Rose Books, 1997) and "Workfare: Ideology for a New Underclass," (Garamond, 1997). He is able to escape from the university by working with grassroots community organizations.

Jean-Marc Fontan has a PhD in sociology from the University of Montreal. He is a professor-researcher at the department of sociology of University of Quebec in Montreal. He works mainly on local development and community economic development. He co-published en 1994 an important book on local development in Quebec. He is member of the Collectif de recherche inter-universitaire sur les transformations et les regulations economiques et sociales (CRITERES).

Enzo Mingione is Professor of rural and urban sociology at the University of Messina, Italy.

Michele Cangiani teaches economic sociology at the Universita di Venezi

What do community organizations and organizers do, and what should they do? For the past thirty years politicians, academics, advocates, and activists have heralded community as a site and strategy for social change. In contrast, "Contesting Community" paints a more critical picture of community work which, according to the authors--in both theory and practice--has amounted to less than the sum of its parts. Their comparative study of efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada describes and analyzes the limits and potential of this work.

Covering dozens of groups, including ACORN, Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue Committee, and the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal, and discussing alternative models, this book is at once historical and contemporary, global and local. "Contesting Community" addresses one of the vital issues of our day--the role and meaning of community in people's lives and in the larger political economy.