Critical ethnography of Self-governing policy in Rural Production Cooperatives (Case Study: Rural Production Cooperatives in Kurdistan Province)

Abstract

In the last few decades, along with the wave of structural adjustment and privatization of neoliberal policies of the ninth government in Iran, one of the policies and strategies in the field of agricultural development and its related cooperatives was self-regulation. The purpose of these policies has been announced in the institutional texts, statutes and organizational rules and regulations, reducing the government's role, increasing the participation and decision-making power of the local community, and empowering the production cooperatives. The purpose of this research is to study the consequences of this policy in rural production cooperatives in Kurdistan province. On this issue, the present study deals with theoretical and conceptual support of neoliberalism in the field of economics and management and the methodology of the Institute of Ethnography of Dorothy Smith to discuss the present subject. In this research, a critique of the autonomy of the production cooperatives is discussed in order to identify the policy of self-regulation. Then, using the temporal analysis, the interviewed interviewer's experience (the components of production co-operatives: CEO, board and member farmers) is discussed. The number of interviewees in this study was based on the theoretical saturation technique of 34 people, with all of them having a deep and semi-structured interview. The results of this research indicate that rural production cooperatives in Kurdistan province, in addition to social, cultural and managerial problems and after the implementation of self-regulation policy, have been involved with other problems caused by self-regulation shock, self-governing autonomy and abolition of state support.

Keywords

• "self-governing policy"
• "rural production cooperatives"
• "failure policies"
• "restorative policies'
• "kurdistan province"