Bio
Emi Do came to cooperatives as a small-scale urban farmer trying to find a viable alternative to the dominant food distribution chain. Though her interest in agricultural cooperatives led to a Ph.D. and an assistant professorship at Tokyo University of Agriculture, the empowerment, mutuality, and solidarity underlying cooperatives sparked an interest in the co-ops as a means to democratize and transform relationships across different workplaces and contexts. Emi was one of the founding members of Platform Cooperative Consortium Japan- an organizational effort to build interest and awareness of platform cooperativism in Japan. She has been an active member of the Community Working Group Operations Team at social.coop for over two years, helping to navigate the challenging waters of online moderation cooperatively.