Interview with Prof. Carmen Marcuello, Director of GESES and President of OIBESCOOP

Could you tell us about yourself and how you got involved working in cooperatives and in the social and solidarity economy in general?

My parents were members of a cooperative and this has clearly influenced my professional and personal development. My parents always encouraged us to dream and create. They showed us that in order to realize ideas and projects, we had to work together with other people. This was the way to build common spaces to develop collective initiatives. From a very young age, I was involved in various associations.

Later, I studied Business Administration at the University of Zaragoza and there was no course on the social and solidarity economy (SSE). The SSE did not seem to exist in the academic curriculum. However, my personal and family experiences helped me to look for another economy that could provide answers to what I already knew. During my PhD, I decided to focus my research on SSE. At the same time, I began to participate actively in the Foundation for Integration and Employment, through which we created a Work Integration Social Enterprise, Mapiser, and a special employment centre, Arapack. I also joined CIRIEC-Spain. We created the GESES-University of Zaragoza research group dedicated to SSE. I am currently President of the Ibero-American Observatory of Employment and the Social and Cooperative Economy (OIBESCOOP) and I am part of CIRIEC-International. I am also the director of the Chair of Social Economy and Cooperatives, I participate in the Social Economy Laboratory of the University of Zaragoza and I collaborate with CEPES-Aragón and the Federation of Labour and Consumer Cooperatives of Aragon. I am co-founder and social director of the association Musethica. I have also had the good fortune to learn from two inspiring, militant and entrepreneurial women, Asunción García Mainar and Tere Soro. More recently, in 2023, I joined the group of Women Leaders of the Social Economy in Spain, promoted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy.

What motivated you to start working on issues related to gender equality and women's participation in the social and solidarity economy in Spain?

Since 2017, I have held the presidency of OIBESCOOP, where we have carried out different research, dissemination and collaboration activities. In 2020, we created a research group dedicated to the recognition and evaluation of the impact and influence of women and women's groups in cooperativism and the SSE throughout Latin America, in the professional, research, entrepreneurship and project leadership fields. Initially, the research work aimed to analyze the historical contribution of women in the SSE in Latin America. However, what we found is that there was no documentation and hardly any collective memory of the women who had been a reference in their territories. We therefore had to focus on the present in order to understand their contributions. The result of this work was published in 2022 in the book titled “Women, Cooperativism and Social and Solidarity Economy in Ibero-America”, coordinated by myself, Juan Fernando Álvarez, Mari Carmen Barragán and Eliane Navarro and published by the OIBESCOOP.

Based on this experience, in 2022, we saw the importance of promoting and favoring research from a gender perspective on the SSE. To this end, we created another working group between CIRIEC-International and OIBESCOOP from which came about the book titled “Social and Solidarity Economy and Gender. A view from Ibero-America”, coordinated by Marie Bouchard, myself and Juan Fernando Álvarez. In parallel, in Spain, through CIRIEC-Spain, we have created a new working group on Gender and SSE led by Saioa Arando and Carmen Marcuello, which is currently in the process of publishing its results.

These two working groups allowed us to identify several issues. First issue is the lack of research on the SSE from a gender perspective at the international level. Although there is very relevant work by researchers such as Bipasha Baruah, Christine Bauhard, Eunate Elio, Gemma Farjardo, Isabelle Guérin, Isabelle Hillenkam and María José Senent, it is crucial to encourage and train new researchers in this field. Secondly, there is a striking lack of information sources that allow research on the subject. We believe that it is essential to make progress in the provision of information on the role of women by SSE bodies and also by public institutions through official statistics. 

Could you tell us about the work you do to advance understanding and dialogue around gender equality and women's participation in the social and solidarity economy in Spain?

In the year 2023, from the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy of the Government of Spain through the Special Commissioner for the Social Economy and Directorate-General of Self-Employment, the Social Economy and Corporate Social Responsibility, promoted the creation of a group of Women Leaders of the Social Economy. This group started with 27 women leaders and currently consists of 45 women from the SSE sector, government institutions and universities. The objective is to develop a roadmap in which the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy commits to promoting equality and visibility of the role of women in the social economy based on the commitment established in the Spanish Social Economy Strategy 2023-2027.[1]

Through this group, we aim to identify the key challenges that need to be addressed in order to strengthen and promote the role of women in SSE entities. To this end, four axes of work have been identified:

1. Training and entrepreneurship: strengthening the empowerment and skills profile of women in the social economy;
2. Visibility and credentials: Promoting knowledge and visibility of women leaders in the social economy:
3. Statistics and research: generating data and knowledge on women in the SSE. Tools and networks: strengthening the participation and leadership of women in the Social Economy

The group has met on several occasions and put together a compilation of experiences and practices related to the different axes. We are currently in the process of setting up working groups to prepare proposals for concrete actions.

What is your vision about the type of changes at the institutional and political level that you hope to implement with this work?

A recent OECD report (2023, p.6) on the topic states that "in several countries, women account for a higher proportion of employment in SSE than in total employment. It is estimated to be over 60 per cent in countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.” Furthermore, an ILO and ICA joint report shows that cooperatives are more equal than other private and public enterprises, highlighting their positive role in reducing gender inequality. However, women's active participation is still low, as is their representation in decision-making and leadership positions, and there is a clear feminization of certain activities. On the other hand, in most countries there is a lack of documentation, statistics, materials and data available for reflection and study. This makes it difficult to make diagnoses and consequently limits the ability to contribute to specific policies for the SSE sector with a gender focus.

On the other hand, I believe it is essential to include a feminist perspective in the analysis of gender equality in the context of SSE. That is, we need to promote policies with a transformative approach that understands women as agents of change towards more sustainable socio-economic models, going beyond the framework that seeks parity and equal opportunities.

To this end, I believe that this group of Women Leaders of the Social Economy in Spain can be a window of opportunity to jointly create a space for dialogue between the SSE sector, public institutions and universities, in order to make relevant proposals for change. Likewise, it seems to me that this could be an experience to be replicated in other countries and, in particular, in international institutions.