Researching the Social Economy

'Researching the Social Economy provides original insights on this important sector of our economy and adds considerably to previous work within the field. Each chapter is well researched and strongly argued, with solid theoretical frameworks adding to the book's overall high academic quality.' -- Tessa Hebb, Director, Carleton Centre for Community Innovation, Carleton University, and Senior Research Associate at the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard University, and the Oxford University Centre for the Environment 'Laurie Mook, Jack Quarter, and Sherida Ryan make a great and much-awaited contribution to the scholarship on the social economy with this rich collection of essays. Researching the Social Economy provides solid analysis while avoiding excessive technical debates, and will certainly advance current gaps within the field.' -- Luc Theriault, Department of Sociology, University of New Brunswick Fredericton

Researching the Social Economy enriches our understanding of how this important cluster of organizations contributes to Canadian society in both economic and social terms, and lays the groundwork for future study.

Researching the Social Economy is one of the first comprehensive research collections on the social economy in Canada. While the term "social economy" is used widely is Western Europe and Quebec, it has had minimal currency in English Canada, where the differences between the public and private sectors and among nonprofits, co-operatives, social enterprises, and community economic development organizations have been emphasized.

The contributions to this volume, flowing from an inter-regional and international network of scholars and community organizations, analyze how the social economy, in its many manifestations, interacts with and shares commonalities with organizations in the other sectors of the economy. Taken as a whole, Researching the Social Economy enriches our understanding of how this important cluster of organizations contributes to Canadian society in both economic and social terms, and lays the groundwork for future study.