Blogs by the N-EXTLAW Team
PAR Study in the Netherlands Summary Amy Lazell & Nena van der Horst Read the full blog here. In this blog, Amy and Nena give an overview of our ongoing PAR study in the Netherlands. They reflect upon the knowledge gathered through recent sessions held by the N-EXLAW team in connection our study participants, detailing the key outcomes. It further provides information on current projects resulting from these consultations. These include Profit in Purpose-Driven Enterprises, the proposal for a Transition Reserve, Patagonia and Steward Ownership, and a Non-Extractive Legal Form. This blog concludes by outlining the next stages of our research and what the team has planned for the near future.
‘Levelling the Playing Field: Making the BVm Viable’ Zafar Shaikhli Read the full blog here. In this blog, Zafar discusses the uneven playing field between social and commercial enterprises due to the difficulties social enterprises face when attracting financing. Examining the Dutch BVm proposal and its lack of incentives, Zafar looks at other attempts to stimulate social enterprise financing within the UK, Italy and the Netherlands and proposes to modify the BVm proposal by banning the possibility of converting a BVm to a BV and instating hard requirements regarding profit distribution.
Reimagining Extractive Capitalism: Learning from Italy’s Banca di Credito Cooperativo Laetitia Bornscheuer & Kinanya Pijl Read the full blog here (on the Transformative Private Law Blog) In this blog, Laetitia and Kinanya take Italy’s Banca di Credito Cooperativo (location Valdarno Fiorentino) as an example of a non-extractive economic practice and discuss the various ways it demonstrates how we can reimagine capitalism and transition towards a non-extractive economy. Through an exploration of the importance of the mutuality principle, community-centricity and pursuit of social inclusion within Banca di Credito Cooperativo, Laetitia and Kinanya discuss how BCC operates as a socially and environmentally sustainable bank and how this may serve more widely as inspiration for rethinking both the purpose and meaning of banking within society.
Discussing the Benefits and Challenges of Working with Participatory Action Research (PAR): Reflections from N-EXTLAW’s PAR Workshop Amy Lazell & Laetitia Bornscheuer Read the full blog here In July 2021, N-EXTLAW hosted an online workshop on Participatory Action Research, ‘Understanding, applying and experiencing Participatory Action Research (PAR): A cross-disciplinary conversation’. This blog post reflects upon the presentations given in this workshop and the key comments and discussions which arose out of them. It will first provide a brief overview of PAR and why this methodology has been adopted within the N-EXTLAW project, followed by an outline of the workshop’s goals and participants. Each of the two panels will then be considered individually, with a final comment on the overall reflections and N-EXTLAW’s future plans for collaboration.
