With this research venture, CoSED stepped out of its comfort zone, and the same will happen to the readers of this analysis. The Map of the Social and Solidarity Economy in Serbia 2022 is a pioneering effort to identify non-traditional actors in the field of the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). It is actors and practices with long traditions (eg cooperatives), but for various reasons stakeholders didn’t recognize them as part of SSE. For the first time, CoSED analyzed alternative actors and their practices that offer alternatives different from dominant capitalist vision of development.
The Map of the Social and Solidarity Economy in Serbia 2022 offers analyzes of conceptual ecosystem models – the connection of actors, institutions and practices of SSE, provides detailed overviews of SSE ecosystems in several European countries, and finally, presents several groups of actors mapped in this research. In this way, conditions are created for a complete analysis of the SSE ecosystem in Serbia. A comprehensive approach provides an opportunity to understand the breadth of the SSE field in Serbia and its diversity that exists despite the hostile environment. It is also an opportunity to understand the necessary directions of development, and in this sense, the publication contains three basic guidelines for further work and investments in the development of the sector for those who strategically consider and build SSE in Serbia.
The CoSED research team produced this study using a qualitative analysis of documents (studies, analyzes and official documents of relevant institutions and organizations involved in the development of SSE), while in the period March-June 2022 a series of interviews with various actors of SSE were organized in order to understand their perceptions of the position in the SSE ecosystem, the connections with other actors and the potential for cooperation. Also, as part of the project, CoSED organized a gathering of mapped and other SSE actors, with the aim of connecting and mutual learning, and an interactive map of the SSE ecosystem in Serbia was published.
The analysis was done as part of the project Mapping the Social and Solidarity Economy Ecosystem in Serbia, which was carried out with the support of the Open Society Foundation in the period from August 2021 to July 2022.
Research team: Dragan Srećković, Zorana Milovanović
Publisher: Coalition for the Development of Solidarity Economy
Publication is only available in Serbian language with summary in English. You can download the publication HERE.
