Project description
Workplace democracy and its intersection with gender equality
In the realm of workplace democracy, an androcentric perspective has long dominated discussions, focusing predominantly on class struggle within worker cooperatives. This narrow focus has inadvertently obscured the unique experiences and contributions of women in these settings. With this in mind, the ERC-funded WE-COOP project will study whether or not worker cooperatives can empower women, redefine labour dynamics, and drive progress in gender equality and workplace democracy. Focusing on France, the project will employ a multilayered approach, combining quantitative and qualitative methods with innovative participatory research. By amplifying the voices and visibility of women workers, WE-COOP will spark new inquiries into feminist utopias at work. It will also consider capitalist labour organisation through the study of radical democratic alternatives (worker cooperatives).
Objective
The WE-COOP project shifts our traditional androcentric perspective on workplace democracy by investigating the labour experiences of women in worker cooperatives. Studied for their high potential in the democratization of labour relations, worker cooperatives have been systematically considered as a site for class struggle only. WE-COOP excavates how and why worker cooperatives are also a locus where yet unexplored sets of representations, practices and justifications pertaining to women’s emancipation and gender equality at work are produced.
Opening a whole new field of enquiry crisscrossing the topics of gender, labour, and democracy, the project addresses two series of questions that cover, respectively, women’s visibility and voice. First, to what extent and how does the democratic apparatus of worker cooperatives allow women to reconfigure labour according to their needs and problems, to re-evaluate the traditional separation between the public and private sphere and to redefine political imaginaries pertaining to their emancipation at work? Second, are there gender-differentiated scripts of cooperative labour and if so, how can they expand our understanding of workplace democracy towards more inclusive analytical frameworks?
Focusing on the case-study of France, the project is based on a multi-layered survey of worker cooperatives as well as rare forms of all-women cooperative experiments. It combines quantitative and qualitative methods with an innovative Participatory Research in four incremental steps, allowing for the appropriation by women workers of their narratives and struggles.
By unfolding the visibility and voice of women workers, WE-COOP will contribute to the ongoing research on participatory methodologies, produce an unprecedented digital narrative archive on cooperative labour fuelling further research, expand our knowledge on gender-differentiated scripts of workplace democracy while opening a new field of inquiry on feminist utopias at work.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
67081 STRASBOURG
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.