Towards A Critical, Stadial Co-operative Studies: The Moment of Reconciliation in Canada Now

Stadial theory has a complex history connected to geological sequence, the human life-cycle, cultural and political patterns, and providential and progressive readings of human history (Topic 5--Co-operative Education,... [ view full abstract ]

Stadial theory has a complex history connected to geological sequence, the human life-cycle, cultural and political patterns, and providential and progressive readings of human history (Topic 5--Co-operative Education, Training and Capacity Building—Stage 5--Macro). Adam Smith and other Scottish Enlightenment leaders mark a decisive break from Viconian and other figurations of civilizational change when they press a four-stage theory of development into an argument for the supremacy of commercial society. The shift from hunting and gathering, through pastoralism and nomadism, to agriculture, and finally commerce shaped modernity in imperial and domestic settings in much of the world. Despite the enormous academic and socio-economic influence of stadial thinking, there has been continual resistance to the application and increasing mis-application of Smith’s understanding of a free-trading commercial society as the best engine of improvement in how we organize ourselves through doing business. Two such sources of resistance—co-operatives and Indigenous anti-colonial collectivism—will be the focus of our paper in the context of current efforts to rethink higher education in Canada.
In Canada, as governments, scholars, and citizens answer the “Calls to Action” issued in June 2015 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission dealing with the realities and legacies of the ultra-colonial Residential School System for Indigenous peoples and a Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada Task Force explores co-operative sector post-secondary needs, there is a great opportunity to build reconciliation for a truly post-colonial Canada through the convergence of Indigenous and co-operative critiques and revisionings of currently dominant, especially extractive, economic practices. The current reset under a new federal government seeking a robust and just social license for economic and extractive projects is also playing out in universities. As the nation tries to decolonize itself and reach a future beyond the fourth stage of commercial and now neo-liberal society, postsecondary institutions are trying to “indigenize” their own colonial practices and priorities.
The self-indigenizing university ought also to be the co-operative university where democratic governance and multiple forms of sustainability reinforce the values and solutions of Indigenous peoples and their treaties with the Crown. We will use an analysis of the Calls to Action, and preliminary university and community responses to those calls, to sketch a stage beyond capitalist stadial theory, a sustainable turn, if you will, empowered by co-operative principles and Indigenous stewardship of abundance economies.