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The Solidarity economy, a kind of “radical” wing of the social and solidarity economy (SSE), encompasses a wide range of diverse initiatives and practices (such as workers’ cooperatives, cooperatives (zadruge), community-supported agriculture, shared housing, shared kitchens, open source, urban gardening, commons and many others). These practices are present worldwide, with each place having its particularities. One might rightfully expect that islands, usually associated with insularity, autarchy, sustainability and resilience, would be perfect laboratories for practising these new ways of achieving a more sustainable future. Could what Mumford (1922) called “the utopia of reconstruction” be exercised on one or more Croatian islands? This presentation considers this question using Patrick Neveling’s (2017) development concept as political economy machinery. According to this point of view, development should be perceived as a category of practice that “maintains or amends long-existing practices of capitalist accumulation and is central to how global, national, and local political economies change”. Having this in mind, we analyse sustainability practices on the Croatian islands of Krk and Cres in light of sustainability as the island’s developmental policy. Results point to certain similarities in the approach of two energy cooperatives, primarily the incentives for such an endeavour and the differences regarding agency, i.e. individual vs group effort. Although it is too early to evaluate the long-term impact on Croatian territory, a relatively new type of endeavour (especially in the energy sector), the results show that it relies on solid incentives from EU funds available for promoting sustainable solutions and individual agency. |
