Abstract

ITCAINA, Xabier. Discrete mobilizations: identity assertion and economic choice in the French Basque Country. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2006, n.50, pp.45-66. ISSN 0873-6529.

The social and solidarity-based economy draws on various ideological sources. In the Basque Country, the existence of a cooperative movement on the Spanish side (with the emblematic case of Mondragón since the 1950s), which partially spread to the French side in the 1970-1980, stems from four sources: the cooperative ideology, Catholicism, a strong feeling of Basque identity, and longstanding practices of reciprocical exchanges. To what extent is the cooperative movement a part of recent mobilizations for a solidarity-based economy in the Basque Country? How do cooperatives which have reached a critical size combine the constraints of globalization with the dissemination of cooperative values? When a society represents itself as a community, how is this conception implemented at the point of economic exchange?

Keywords : Basque Country; workers’ cooperatives; associations; identity; nationalism; social and solidarity-based economy.

        · abstract in Portuguese | French | Spanish     · text in French     · French ( pdf )