Asian co-operative movements are among the most interesting and most dynamic in the world. Many of them reflect four paradigms – past and present – in their development. They’ve all inherited strong communitarian traditions from the traditional lifestyles and economies of the remarkably diverse region. For example, the planting and harvesting of rice draws on the strength of kin ties and the communal involvement of temples and mosques. Asian co-operatives have also been affected by European co-operative developments exported during the imperial regime. They often embrace co-operatives as part of the independence agenda, and the independence leaders in many countries are still respected for their co-operative loyalties and enthusiasms. Today, most movements are developing new co-ops – and reshaping old ones – as they respond to the opportunities and threats of the new “liberalism”.

These trends were evident at two conferences which Ian MacPherson attended in November. He was invited by Asian co-operative organizations to a workshop in Pune, India. It focused on understanding the immediate and long-term impacts of Co-operative Credit legislation in India in 1904. It was the first piece of significant co-operative legislation within the British Empire and profoundly affected co-operative development in Asia and Africa. To some extent the legislation also influenced co-operative development in Canada and the United States, particularly in co-operative banking—the caisses populaires and credit union movements. Alphonse Desjardins studied it and the reports that preceded it carefully, while Edward Filene, who played such an important role in the development of the American credit union movement, was profoundly influenced by the community credit societies he visited two years after the Act was passed.

MacPherson’s paper explored this impact but, more importantly, raised questions about how we understand the early development of co-operatives and how we can systematically analyze how co-operative movements flourish, or flounder, across different cultures and national circumstances. He appealed for a deeper multi-national analysis of co-operative movements through the prism of Co-operative Studies.

The second conference was the Regional Forum of the International Co-operative Alliance’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, held in Chiangmai, November 29 to December 3rd. It focused on “Re-Engineering the Co-operative in the Twenty-First Century”. MacPherson presented a theme paper on “co-operation and competition” at the start of the conference, discussing how the movement has always appealed to individuals by offering human betterment, empowerment and direct financial benefits.

He offered an interpretation of the ways in which the co-operative movement has viewed human personality over the years, contrasting it with common materialistic assumptions about the nature of the human condition. Accepting this perspective encourages co-operative organisations to be flexible, robust and relevant institutions capable of adapting to changing circumstances, and effectively anticipating the needs of their members and communities.

The Forum featured a series of papers discussing successful, and not-so-successful, ways in which co-ops in Asia are responding to contemporary change. It also included a particularly sobering discussion from the Australian experience demonstrating how demutualisation can become a reality by default or because of clever, well-financed manipulation by those who seek to benefit from the accumulated but not always well-understood assets of co-operative organisations.

It was a rich meeting, reflecting the diversity and strength of the Asian movements and presenting many interesting insights into how different kinds of co-operatives are responding to the changes typical of our times. As for so much of the last 20 or 30 years, many of the most interesting, thoughtful and exciting co-operative experiments in the world are occurring in Asia.