Rolling Out the Transformative Social Economy: A Case Study of Organic Intellectualism in Canadian Settlement Houses

• Main Author: Fong, Melissa
• Other Authors: Schugurensky, Daniel
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: activism; adult education; advocacy; alienation; anti-poverty; Canadian settlement houses; case study; community development; community economic development organizations; conscientization; counter-hegemony; governance; marxist-humanist; organic intellectualism; popular education; roll-out neoliberalism; social change; social economy; social movement; social service provision; social work; sociology; Toronto; transformative; welfare; 0516; 0515; 0998; 0340; 0501; 0510; 0511; 0334; 0452; 0630; 0344
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/25647

Social economy community development organizations (SECDOs) are social service organizations that provide poverty relief but do not necessarily inspire a counter-hegemonic antipoverty strategy against a neoliberal welfare state. Tension between providing human social services and engaging in advocacy is at the core of how SECDOs may be both complicit to as well as working against the neoliberalization of the welfare state. This study explores how SECDOs can nurture a new paradigm for community economic development organizations. Through a case study of a Canadian settlement house, the research demonstrates how transforming work may encourage a culture of organic intellectualism or, a culture of emancipatory consciousness-raising. By re-organizing workplace practices, such as working collaboratively, providing a hub for services and engaging in popular education, transformative SECDOs help provide the conditions for citizens to affect governance. The research theorizes how SECDOs may foster a culture of organic intellectualism to promote the transformative social economy.