Cooperatives, colonialism, and anti-colonial struggle: lessons from the British empire

With Aaron Windel, Simon Fraser University
December 7 · 10 AM · Online, free, registration required

The cooperative movement was a pillar of culture and community in 19th- and 20th-century Britain. The co-op shop was a fixture in British towns and cities, and cooperators traced roots for their movement in histories of working-class struggle for community control and democracy amid the social upheaval of early industrial capitalism. However, the cooperative movement looks very different when set in contexts of British colonialism. In the 20th century, British colonial officials seized on cooperatives as indispensable to a strategy to rescue the British empire and colonial capitalism from structural crises and the rising tide of anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia. This talk traces the career of that strategy and highlights how activists and cooperators organized to challenge British rule and disentangle the cooperative movement from colonial systems.

About the speaker
Aaron Windel is Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. His research focuses on colonial rule, rural economics and colonial development, and anti-colonial movements in the British empire.

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