Campaigning for cooperatives as resistance to neoliberal capitalism

Abstract

This article investigates the eventual performance of critical resistance to neoliberal capitalism in the discourse of a marketing campaign that promotes the organisational form of cooperatives. Through discourse analysis, this article shows that the performed resistance activity in the campaign discourse is non-critical resistance since the dominant discourse of neoliberal capitalism is reproduced. The analysis shows that affective and economic articulations are intertwined in resistance through the discursive promotion of cooperation. The article contributes to understandings of cooperation as potential resistance to neoliberal capitalism, and highlights the risk of resistance simultaneously reproducing the power of dominant discourses.

Keywords:

• Cooperatives
• critical resistance
• affect
• neoliberal capitalism
• discourse

Notes

1. The quote, retrieved in June 2016, comes from a headline on the website buildingabetterworldnow.coop (ICA 2016a), now cooperativesforabetterworld.coop, managed by Cooperatives for a Better World (2017), initiated by the International Co-operative Alliance in 2015.

2. The campaign has grown since the materials analysed were collected. It presently (January 2017) consists of an extensive website with marketing materials such as videos and statistics, accessible from the internet domain cooperativesforabetterworld.coop (Cooperatives for a Better World 2017), previously buildingabetterworldnow.coop (ICA 2016a).