Co-op News - February 2020

REVIEWS
How can co-operative university models reform
higher education?
Reclaiming the
University for
the Public Good
– Experiments
and Futures in
Co-operative
Higher Education,
Edited by Malcolm
Noble and Cilla
Ross, (Palgrave
Macmillan, £97)
Warsaw Housing
Cooperative
Magdalena Matysek
-Imieliñska
(Springer, £35.99)
Higher education is in crisis due to unaccountability
and lack of control by the majority, according to
Malcolm Noble and Cilla Ross. Their solution?
It’s time to apply co-operative principles to our
university system.
Reclaiming the University, edited by the pair,
explores alternative models for higher education,
arguing that, at universities in the UK, the notion
of education as a public good is being driven out
by neoliberalism.
By contrast, they say co-operative higher
education is being underpinned by values including
active learning based on participatory approaches,
solidaristic, not competitive, practice and inclusivity.
Here’s a fascinating case study from Polish
academic Magdalena Matysek-Imieliñska, which
takes Warsaw Housing Co-operative as an example
of modernist architecture and social change.
Primarily aimed at academics and researchers, the
book explores how the housing co-op turned passive
residents into active citizens. It also examines the
influence of social reformers such as Charles Fourier
and Robert Owen on the development of housing
The book looks at the UK Co-operative University
Project while exploring some of the existing
co-operative university models around the world.
Only eight universities self-identify as co-operative,
and the book looks at three of them – in Kenya,
Tanzania and Basque Country. There’s also a look
at other alternative forms of higher education,
including autonomous learning spaces and the
student housing co-op as a site of pedagogy.
The book forms part of Palgrave’s Critical
University Studies Series, which aims to provide
a forum for a critically informed debate about the
consequences of university reforms. It would be of
interest to academics, researchers and activists.
Turning residents into citizens: Lessons from modernist
architecture and urban collectives in Warsaw
co-operatives. The research could be situated in
the area of critical urban studies, participatory
humanities and utopian studies.
Warsaw Housing Co-operative was built in the
1920s in Zoliborz, a district situated some distance
from the city centre, to address the housing deficit
in the interwar period. The book describes how
modernist architects of the day shaped new urban
lifestyles through the design of the flats.
Initially founded as a workers’ estate for those who
lived off their own labour, the housing co-op soon
started welcoming intellectuals as well. The book
focuses the role of these intellectuals as reformers
and activists who played a key role in the development
of the housing co-op. They lived on the estate and
were members of the co-operative, subordinate to
its management. This meant that they were able
to inspire the estate’s residents while also learning
from them and testing their proposed solutions.
Together, the residents created co-operative forms
of everyday supply, consumption and organisation
of work. The co-operative estate involved residents
in gardening and plant cultivation. It also
provided health care services to residents and ran
a cafeteria.
The book also considers the models of power
structures and the urban culture produced on the
housing estate. The key takeaway from the analysis
is that the city can be a radical space where selfsufficient
urban collectives pursuing common good
can thrive.
48 | FEBRUARY 2020