Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LivingTogether (Living Together: a study of Hansalim as a model for solidarity pathways towards sustainable food systems)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-09-01 do 2023-08-31
In recent years, national governments and international bodies have woken up to the urgent need to transform food systems towards fairer and more sustainable models as part of the global effort to respond to the rapidly worsening climate emergency. As policy and research priorities have shifted, grassroots initiatives have also proliferated across Europe, aimed at bringing together farmers and consumers into partnership to detach themselves from the industrial food system and organise their own food production and distribution at local scales on agroecological principles.
Although they employ a huge diversity of models and methods, they share three common goals: to provide affordable good food for citizens, a decent and stable livelihood for producers and to restore the health of agricultural and natural ecosystems. While many of these projects are highly productive and successfully deliver fresh fruit and vegetables and other staples to hundreds and sometimes thousands of local members, they remain small scale, scattered and limited in terms of scope of goods and accessibility to the majority of consumers. What would it take for these diverse and innovative experiments to initiate a larger-scale transformation of regional and national food systems? Are there examples we can learn from?
The Hansalim Life Movement in Korea represents an ambitious experiment in uniting producers and citizen-consumers into a single democratic movement for social transformation and creation of a comprehensive alternative food system. Starting as a single CSA-style multi-stakeholder cooperative of farmers and consumers with a single rice store in 1986, Hansalim has grown to become a national federation of 30 consumer 'Life Cooperatives' and 15 producer associations with a combined membership of 800,000 citizen-consumer households and 2,300 producer households, 242 stores across the country and a product range of over 4,000 goods. From the beginning until the present day, it has maintained an emphasis on social and ecological values and working towards the public good through joint activities between producer members and citizen members, education, publishing, environmental campaigning.
The purpose of this research is to examine Hansalim's journey in search of useful lessons for those in Europe now starting to consider how to build their diverse initiatives into a larger and more coherent movement for wider transformation. By making knowledge of Hansalim's experience accessible to European audiences I hope to not only inspire others in Europe to enlarge their vision of what is possible by working together, but also provide examples of the specific opportunities and pitfalls of various strategies for growing in scale and scope while also adapting to a changing context. Rather than offering a model for simple imitation, the central objective of this research is to tell the story of Hansalim in a way that is relevant to those in Europe who strive to realise similar values as the Hansalim Life Movement.
Although they employ a huge diversity of models and methods, they share three common goals: to provide affordable good food for citizens, a decent and stable livelihood for producers and to restore the health of agricultural and natural ecosystems. While many of these projects are highly productive and successfully deliver fresh fruit and vegetables and other staples to hundreds and sometimes thousands of local members, they remain small scale, scattered and limited in terms of scope of goods and accessibility to the majority of consumers. What would it take for these diverse and innovative experiments to initiate a larger-scale transformation of regional and national food systems? Are there examples we can learn from?
The Hansalim Life Movement in Korea represents an ambitious experiment in uniting producers and citizen-consumers into a single democratic movement for social transformation and creation of a comprehensive alternative food system. Starting as a single CSA-style multi-stakeholder cooperative of farmers and consumers with a single rice store in 1986, Hansalim has grown to become a national federation of 30 consumer 'Life Cooperatives' and 15 producer associations with a combined membership of 800,000 citizen-consumer households and 2,300 producer households, 242 stores across the country and a product range of over 4,000 goods. From the beginning until the present day, it has maintained an emphasis on social and ecological values and working towards the public good through joint activities between producer members and citizen members, education, publishing, environmental campaigning.
The purpose of this research is to examine Hansalim's journey in search of useful lessons for those in Europe now starting to consider how to build their diverse initiatives into a larger and more coherent movement for wider transformation. By making knowledge of Hansalim's experience accessible to European audiences I hope to not only inspire others in Europe to enlarge their vision of what is possible by working together, but also provide examples of the specific opportunities and pitfalls of various strategies for growing in scale and scope while also adapting to a changing context. Rather than offering a model for simple imitation, the central objective of this research is to tell the story of Hansalim in a way that is relevant to those in Europe who strive to realise similar values as the Hansalim Life Movement.
The first six months were spent on full-time Korean language study. I also built a project website to introduce my research and publish blog posts about my progress and wrote a short article for publication in Hansalim's own 'Mosim Magazine' to introduce my research to people involved with the Hansalim Life Movement.
This first period was followed by 6 months of desk research and interaction with researchers from Hansalim's Mosim and Salim Research Institute and an independent Korean researcher with an expertise in the history of Korean cooperativism. During this time I gathered Korean and English language materials about Hansalim and the wider cooperative movement in Korea.
Phase 1 of the fieldwork began in September 2022 with five narrative interviews of different stakeholders involved in different aspects of Hansalim's governance and management.
Between November and December I interviewed 15 people involved with running the distribution and production of different types of goods including employees and members of producer communities in and around Seoul.
Phase 3 of the fieldwork was a visit to Hansalim Busan to interview 4 directors, 2 producers and 3 employees which provided helpful insights into movement from a different perspective. At this time I also began researching food and farming cooperatives and community supported agriculture projects (CSA) in European countries to identify ones which shared a similar set of values as Hansalim and which showed some potential for growing in scale and scope. I organised two 3 week trips to Europe (planned for September - November 2023) to visit these diverse solidarity food communities to introduce my research about Hansalim and to learn about their own experiences and visions.
During April to June 2023, phase 4 involved gathering and translating materials created by Hansalim's regional member coops and producer communities which detailed their own histories and experiences as distinct parts of the Hansalim movement. This led to a research visit to Wonju to interview one of the last remaining founders of Hansalim and also interview the current chair of directors of Wonju Hansalim.
As the final fifth phase of fieldwork, the Jeju Hansalim visit took place at the end of June 2023. I joined two Mosim researchers and a fourth collaborator to conduct 11 interviews with 19 people (including directors, employees, activists and producers). The following weeks were spent preparing the Jeju interview transcripts and starting analysis of some of the other interview transcripts for the second academic paper and book chapters about Hansalim as a solidarity-based food system.
This first period was followed by 6 months of desk research and interaction with researchers from Hansalim's Mosim and Salim Research Institute and an independent Korean researcher with an expertise in the history of Korean cooperativism. During this time I gathered Korean and English language materials about Hansalim and the wider cooperative movement in Korea.
Phase 1 of the fieldwork began in September 2022 with five narrative interviews of different stakeholders involved in different aspects of Hansalim's governance and management.
Between November and December I interviewed 15 people involved with running the distribution and production of different types of goods including employees and members of producer communities in and around Seoul.
Phase 3 of the fieldwork was a visit to Hansalim Busan to interview 4 directors, 2 producers and 3 employees which provided helpful insights into movement from a different perspective. At this time I also began researching food and farming cooperatives and community supported agriculture projects (CSA) in European countries to identify ones which shared a similar set of values as Hansalim and which showed some potential for growing in scale and scope. I organised two 3 week trips to Europe (planned for September - November 2023) to visit these diverse solidarity food communities to introduce my research about Hansalim and to learn about their own experiences and visions.
During April to June 2023, phase 4 involved gathering and translating materials created by Hansalim's regional member coops and producer communities which detailed their own histories and experiences as distinct parts of the Hansalim movement. This led to a research visit to Wonju to interview one of the last remaining founders of Hansalim and also interview the current chair of directors of Wonju Hansalim.
As the final fifth phase of fieldwork, the Jeju Hansalim visit took place at the end of June 2023. I joined two Mosim researchers and a fourth collaborator to conduct 11 interviews with 19 people (including directors, employees, activists and producers). The following weeks were spent preparing the Jeju interview transcripts and starting analysis of some of the other interview transcripts for the second academic paper and book chapters about Hansalim as a solidarity-based food system.
The main output from the research will be an open access online book. It will be the first detailed English language account of the Hansalim Life Movement and the first piece of work to consider Hansalim from the perspective of New Cooperativism and solidarity-based food system transformation. It will provide a historical account of the Hansalim Life Movement, its philosophical roots, and an in-depth analysis of how it functions as a solidarity-based food system providing a comprehensive alternative to the contemporary industrialised food system. For practitioners and researchers in Europe this will provide a rich source of inspiration and ideas to stimulate their own efforts towards transformative change in local and national food systems.
Accompanying academic articles will engage with contemporary debates around food systems transformation, commoning and cooperativism and help to address the conceptual and empirical gaps in the literature which has so far neglected multi-stakeholder cooperatives in food and farming, largely ignored the beyond-economic benefits of cooperation and suffered from a bias towards Western and South American contexts.
Over the longer term, the book, articles and networking activities (i.e. Vienna Forum) will help to drive forward efforts to create a diversity of solidarity-based economic arrangements in food, farming, care, energy and other sectors capable of challenging the profit-driven status quo. The results of my research will help to enlarge the philosophical foundations for such cooperation and movement building and also provide important examples of the opportunities and challenges that will be faced along the way.
Accompanying academic articles will engage with contemporary debates around food systems transformation, commoning and cooperativism and help to address the conceptual and empirical gaps in the literature which has so far neglected multi-stakeholder cooperatives in food and farming, largely ignored the beyond-economic benefits of cooperation and suffered from a bias towards Western and South American contexts.
Over the longer term, the book, articles and networking activities (i.e. Vienna Forum) will help to drive forward efforts to create a diversity of solidarity-based economic arrangements in food, farming, care, energy and other sectors capable of challenging the profit-driven status quo. The results of my research will help to enlarge the philosophical foundations for such cooperation and movement building and also provide important examples of the opportunities and challenges that will be faced along the way.