Agreeing on Value, Disagreeing on Evaluation?

Coordination, Evaluation and Justice in Cooperatives

Nina Pohler

3.30pm, 29th November

RHB138, Goldsmiths

Many cooperatives aspire to be ‘more’ than just an economic organization, a community that shares ideas on a just economy. Since they have to balance and compromise different economies of worth in their practices, they are especially interesting for exploring the tension between different rationalities. In order to understand practices of coordination and evaluation in cooperatives, this paper uses concepts from french convention theory, particularly from the work of Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot. In convention theory organizations are conceptualized as ‘compromising devices’ between different modes of coordination. Furthermore, modes of coordination are viewed as related to different modes of evaluation. Using examples from a case study on a virtual cooperative that produces and sells beverages, the paper will show how concepts from convention theory can be used to explore the relationship between calculation, evaluation and justice in organizational practices.

All are welcome to attend and no registration is necessary.

Nina Pohler is a PhD student at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Research Assistant at the CityScienceLab, HCU Hamburg and currently a Visiting Fellow at PERC