Corporations, cooperatives, and the state: Examples from Italy

Current Anthropology

Volumn 52, Issue SUPPL. 3, 2011, Pages

  Vargas Cetina, Gabriela ^a  

^a UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE YUCATÁN   (Mexico)

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EID: 79953147722     PISSN: 00113204     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/656784     Document Type: Article

References (5)

1. I will use here the established Italian conceptualization of capitalist businesses-which are those where capital is provided by investors, separate from labor-and cooperatives, where capital and labor tend to be provided by the same people who are members of the cooperative business or where part of the capital may come from public funds but the work is carried out by the member owners of the cooperative association.
2. See also http://www.csrwire.com (accessed May 27, 2007).
3. Regarding "social cooperatives," a Wikipedia entry (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperativa-sociale) states that they came about in the 1970s in northern Italy and from there spread to the rest of the country. My perception, however, is that they appeared or gained visibility in the 1990s, often associated with large transnational NGOs such as the World Wildlife Foundation, Tools for Peace, and Green Peace and they were often staffed by volunteers. In the 2000s they later took on the form of small cooperative firms, often subcontracted by local and regional governments to run social services such as clinics, treatment facilities, therapy centers, education programs, and other welfare-related services.
4. Bardia and most proper names of Sardinian localities are pseudonyms. I have decided to keep them even if most of my readers in Sardinia know all the real names of the places mentioned in my publications and love to tell me so.
5. While in other parts of Sardinia, such as Ogliastra, women carry out the sowing and cleaning of vineyards along with men, in Bardia women do not till the land but only participate in the harvest. However, in Bardia the main woman of the house, locally identified as sa mere 'e 'omu (from sa mere de su domu in academic Sardinian, meaning "the person in charge of a house"), is in charge of organizing the work of the entire family, including all male and female members or, if she has married children, even the extended family's and her own (Da Re 1990, 1996; Murru-Corriga 1987).