Cooperative Economics 2025-26 Awardees
Join the Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy for the Cooperative Economics Symposium. We are proud to feature four UCSB faculty and graduate awardees who will share research on Pacific gray whale ecotourism and conservation, cooperation and commerce in South Asian Chicago, farmworker organizing and cooperative farming, and worker-led models of socio-economic cooperation.
Jake W. Dean
Ecotourism, Conservation, and Community in Pacific Gray Whale Country
Dean conducts ethnographic research examining the relationship between ecotourism, conservation efforts, and local communities in Pacific gray whale habitat, exploring how cooperative economic models can support both ecological sustainability and community wellbeing across coastal Mexico and Alaska.
Utathya Chattopadhyaya
Cooperation, Caste, and Commerce in South Asian Chicago
Chattopadhyaya examines the historical development of cooperative economic practices within South Asian communities in Chicago, analyzing how caste dynamics, migration patterns, and commercial networks have shaped collective economic organizing and mutual aid systems across generations.
Ricado Jacobs
Organizing Knowledges for Farmworker Organizing and Cooperative Farming
Jacobs investigates how farmworkers develop and share collective knowledge systems that support both labor organizing and cooperative farming initiatives, examining the intersection of grassroots organizing strategies, agricultural practices, and alternative economic models in farmworker communities. This research will be presented by Matthew Kinsella-Walsh.
Ramsha Usman
Labor Union to Socio-Economic Cooperation: Workers Redefining Sustainable Work
Usman explores how workers are transforming traditional labor union models into broader frameworks of socio-economic cooperation, examining innovative approaches to worker ownership, collective bargaining, and sustainable labor practices that challenge conventional employment structures and reimagine the future of work.
