Milford Bateman
is an independent researcher on issues of local development, a Visiting Professor of Economics at Juraj Dobrila University of Pula in Croatia, and an Adjunct Professor of Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada. He is highly regarded as a development consultant, with recent assignments with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He is also widely recognised as one of the world’s leading academic experts and critics in the field of microfinance and its contribution to local development. His numerous publications include Why Doesn’t Microfinance Work? The Destructive Rise of Local Neoliberalism (Zed Books, 2010) and most recently an edited volume, co-edited with Kate Maclean, Seduced and Betrayed: Exposing the Contemporary Microfinance Phenomenon (University of New Mexico Press, 2017).
Al Campbell
is Professor Emeritus in economics at the University of Utah. He is a prolific writer on issues related to socialism, co-operativism and Cuba. Recent writings include ‘Updating Cuba’s Economic and Social Model: Where is it Going?’ Dimensions, March 2014; Cuban Economists and the Cuban Economy (editor and introductory chapter) (University Press of Florida, 2013); ‘Socialism, Communism and Revolution,’ in The Edgar Companion to Marxist Economics, edited by Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad-Filho (Elgar, 2012), ‘Cuba: A Project to build Socialism in a Neoliberal World,’ in Trajectories of Globalization: Third World Economies in the Twenty-First Century (Clarity Press, 2010).
Grizel Donéstevez Sánchez
is Professor of Local Development at the Universidad de Las Villas, Cuba. She is a specialist in rural development and co-operatives, and a consultant. She also advises the government commission in the province of Villa Clara for local development and co-operatives and has been involved for years in several international research projects as coordinator of a working group dedicated to research and the introduction of co-operative forms of self-managed production in Cuba, and the design of municipal strategies based on local development. Her publications include La economia campesina en la transición socialista: el proceso de descomposición-campenización (Editorial Feijóo, 2008).
is a founder of and research associate with the Centre for Global Justice in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He organises a conference of philosophers and social scientists in Havana, Cuba (since 1990). He has lectured and published extensively on co-operativism and co-operatives in the development process, with particular reference to Cuba. He is the editor of Moving Beyond Capitalism (Routledge, 2016) and Recreating Democracy in a Globalized State (Clarity Press, 2012) on how corporate-led neoliberal globalisation is transforming nation-states into administrative units serving the interests of transnational capital.
Olga Fernández Ríos
is a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of Havana, Cuba, and its Director from 1988 to 1999. She was Professor of Marxist Studies and Sociopolitical Theory at the Central University of Santa Clara and the University of Havana. She has held diplomatic posts in New York, Washington, DC, and Chile. She is a member of the Academy of Science of Cuba.
Julio C. Gambina
is Professor of Economics at the National University of Rosario (UNR), Argentina. He serves as President of the Social Research and Policy Foundation (FISyP) and the Center for Studies and Training of the Argentine Judicial Federation (CEFJA). He is also a board member of Institute of Studies and Training of the Argentine Workers' Central Union (CTA), and served as President of SEPLA—Society of Political Economy and Critical Thinking from Latin America—from 2016 to 2018. Publications include La crisis capitalista contemporánea y el debate sobre las alternativas (Fundación de Investigaciones Sociales y Políticas, 2013).
Camila Piñeiro Harnecker
is Professor and Researcher in the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at the University of Havana, and one of Cuba’s leading academic researchers on co-operativism and co-operatives. She is the editor and coauthor of Cooperatives and Socialism: A View from Cuba (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). This book reflects the most up to date and systematic research into and analysis of the role of co-operativism by Cuban academics. Her body of work includes primary research of co-operatives and draws theoretical implications as well as the policy implications for ‘updating’ the Cuban model.
has extensive experience related to workers’ self-management and the role of co-operativism and co-operatives in the economic development process. She is the Academic Director of Saint Mary’s University’s Co-operative Management Education program as well as Chair of the International Cooperative Alliance Research Committee. Her research specialty is workers’ participation, co-operative economic theory, and comparative economic systems. Publications include Co-operative Innovations in China and the West (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014), Co-operatives in a Post Growth Era (ZED Books, 2014), and Co-operatives for Sustainable Communities (University of Saskatchewan Press, 2015). In 2015, she co-edited a study for the International Cooperative Alliance titled, Co-operative Governance Fit to Build Resilience in the Face of Complexity (International Co-operative Alliance, 2015).
Dayrelis Ojeda Suris
is Assistant Professor of the Cuban Economy and a Management Consultant at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy (CEEC) at the University of Havana. She is the author of several papers related to finance, knowledge management, internal control and the operations of non-agricultural co-operatives. She is a member of the Cuban Scientific Society of Co-operativism and the Cooperative Network in the University of Havana.
Gabriela Roffinelli
is Profesor of sociology at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) and teaches at the Universidad Popular Madres de Plaza de Mayo (UPMPM). She is a researcher in the Department of Cooperatvism at the Centro Cultural de la Cooperación (CCC) and the Instituto Movilizador de Fondos Cooperativos (IMFC). Her publications include La teoría del sistema capitalista mundial. Una aproximación al pensamiento de Samir Amin (Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 2006). She has just finished writing a book on the Argentine co-operative movement (Existe una alternativa al neoliberalismo).
Frederick S. Royce
works as assistant scientist in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Florida. He specialises in crop simulation models; co-operative agricultural production systems; on-farm computer applications; climate and agriculture. He is also Program Manager for the Co-operative Agreement between the University of Havana and the University of Florida. He is co-editor with Carmen Diana Deere of Rural Social Movements in Latin America: Organizing for Sustainable Livelihoods (University Press of Florida, 2009).
is Assistant Professor of Economics, Vice Dean for Research and International Relations and the Managing Editor of the Economic Research Journal at the Faculty of Economics and Tourism ‘Dr. Mijo Mirković,’ Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. He also recently served as an Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia for Economy, Finance and EU funds. Dr. Sinkovic holds an MS and PHD in Economics from Juraj Dobrila University of Pula and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
is Professor of Development Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas (UAZ) in Mexico and Professor Emeritus in International Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University (Halifax, Canada). He is author, coauthor and editor of over 40 books on issues of Latin American and world development, including Critical Development Studies: Tools for Change (Pluto Press, 2011) and The Cuban Revolution as Socialist Human Development (Brill, 2011). Books co-authored with James Petras include Social Movements in Latin America: Neoliberalism and Popular Resistance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). He serves as co-chair of the Critical Development Studies (CDS) Network and editor of the Routledge series, Critical Development Studies and The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies (co-edited with Paul Bowles) (Routledge, 2017).
Marcelo Vieta
is Assistant Professor in the Program in Adult Education and Community Development and co-founder and executive committee member of the Centre for Learning, Social Economy & Work at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Dr. Vieta researches and teaches on workplace and organisational learning and social change; the sociology of work; the social and solidarity economy; economic democracy; the philosophy of technology, and critical theory. Specialising in Latin America, Canada, and Italy, in recent years Dr. Vieta has been publishing on the historical conditions, the political economic contexts, and the lived experiences of co-operative movements in Argentina, Italy, Canada, and Cuba.