My proposal to create a working group in English to help more people join this global process to work for the Transformative Economies

1. WSFTE working group
in English
MIGUEL YASUYUKI HIROTA（MIGUEL@INEVAL.ORG)

2. Context: lack of
networking efforts in
other than Spanish
• WSFTE: Quite successful in
networking Spanish-speaking
countries, but not beyond the
language barrier
• Reason: Lack of resources to
translate, the team’s focus on
working in Spanish
• Need to create another network
in English as a lingua franca

3. Spanish is expanding, but
throughout the whole world?
• More and more people speak Spanish in the
West, especially in the US, Brazil and Europe, BUT
NOT ELSEWHERE
• How many Africans or Asians are learning
Spanish and speak it fluently?

4. Where are
Romance
languages
spoken?
• Predominant in Latin America,
Western Africa and Western
Europe, but not elsewhere
• Expansion of Spanish: US,
Canada, Europe…> But neither
in East Africa nor Asia
• Predominance of Spanish =
exclusion of English-speaking
Africa, non-Latin Europe and
Asia

5. English as lingua franca
for intercontinental
networking
• Lack of resources to translate
every information: Need to set up a
team where no translation is needed
for internal works
• What single language to choose?:
English, not because we love Anglo-
Saxon hegemony, but because it’s the
most spoken language throughout
the world
• Esperanto?: Not practical due to the
lack of speakers in the SSE world
• Awareness of representativity: You
work for those people from your
country who don’t speak English

6. Trilingualism
can’t cover the
whole world
• Red: One of WSFTE’s
languages (English, French
and Spanish) is official
• Pink: People are fluent in
English
• Blue: Another Romance
language is official
• Grey: Countries thought to
be excluded from RIPESS’
trilingual policy

7. How about the
multilingualism?
• At the same time, we have to be
very aware of the need to provide
basic information about SSE in
more than 3 languages (English,
French and Spanish)
• Translation cost has been the
hurdle, so we have to ensure we
can financially afford to provide
more information

8. Is English
understood all
over the world?
• EF EPI shows the ranking of
English proficiency per country
• Asia, Africa, former Soviet
Union: many countries still show
lack of proficiency in English
• Neither French nor Spanish is
popular in Asia and former Soviet
countries
• Need for WSFTE to cover such
areas by providing more
information in local languages

9. What the trilingualism brings about
I’M JUAN VALDEZ FROM COLOMBIA,
I SPEAK SPANISH SO I CAN JOIN WSFTE
WE’RE INDONESIAN COFFEE PRODUCERS, WE CAN’T
JOIN WSFTE BECAUSE WE SPEAK INDONESIAN ONLY

10. Typical mentality of monolinguals
whose language isn’t spoken abroad
• Online communication: limited to those in the same country, lacking
international experiences and knowledge about the rest of the world
• Language complex: “I speak my language only, I’m less talented than
others”, “I feel silly when lectures are given in another language” > Autistic
nationalism (“I wanna remain in my own country where I feel linguistically
safe!”)
• Some of them would see SSE as a tool to create closed economy where you
won’t be bothered by foreigners > XENOPHOBIA!!
• > Need to provide more information in their languages
• > Need to train more intercultural SSE players who can communicate with
them in their languages

11. Jesuits began
with translating
the Bible into different
languages
• If we’re to diffuse abstract concepts
like SSE, localisation (providing
information in the language people
can understand) is a necessary step
• Photo: “Vocabulary of Japan’s
language” (Japanese-Portuguese
dictionary edited by Jesuits in the
16th century)

12. Priority of some languages
over others
3 Criteria:
• Population: 3 points for languages with > 100 million speakers, 2 points for languages with 10 to
100 million speakers, 1 point for languages with less than 10 million speakers
• SSE Activity: 3 points (very active), 2 points (somewhat active), 1 point (not active at all)
• Monolingualism: 3 points (Most people don’t speak any of WSFTE languages), 2 points
(Professionals, public officers etc. understand one of WSFTE languages), 1 point (Most people
understand one of WSFTE languages)
• Note: My evaluation is quite subjective and locals may oppose to it

13. Language ranking: 8 / 9
(4 languages)
Language Population SSE activities Monolingualism Total
Chinese 3 2 3 8
Indonesian 3 2 3 8
Japanese 3 2 3 8
Korean 2 3 3 8

14. Language ranking: 7 / 9
(8 languages)
Language Population SSE activities Monolingualism Total
Arabic 3 2 2 7
Italian 2 3 2 7
Khmer 2 2 3 7
Persian 3 1 3 7
Portuguese 3 3 1 7
Russian 3 1 3 7
Thai / Lao 2 2 3 7
Turkish 2 2 3 7

15. Cf. Other important languages
in WSFTE
Language Population SSE activities Monolingualism Total
Basque 1 3 1 5
Catalan 2 3 1 6
Greek 2 2 1 5
Polish 2 1 2 5
Tagalog 3 2 1 6
Vietnamese 2 1 3 6

16. Countries which can be covered
TRILINGUALISM MULTILINGUALISM

17. How much will
multilingualism
cost per year?
(15 languages)
- Initial cost: WSFTE in a nutshell
pamphlet (400 words x 0.12 € x 15
languages) = 720 €
- Quarterly newsletter: 3,000
words x 0.12 € x 15 languages x 4
quarters = 21,600 €
- Language manager: half-time,
24,000 € / year
- Translation cost can be reduced
by establishing close relationship
with national networks which can
translate it into their own language

18. Time zones: another headache
for international online meetings
• The Earth is round: somewhere in the
world is always late at night
• Lack of the best time for everybody in
the world to be online
• Need to review if our policy to meet at 3pm
Barcelona was appropriate

19. Barcelona (UTC+1/2) 3pm
• Auckland (New Zealand, UTC+12/13)
1am+1/3am+1
• Seoul (UTC+9) 10pm/11pm
• Manila, Hong Kong (UTC+8) 9pm/10pm
• Bangkok (UTC+7) 8pm/9pm
• New Delhi (UTC+5.5) 6:30pm/7:30pm
• Brasília, Buenos Aires (UTC-3) 10am/11am
• Bogotá (UTC-5) 8am/9am
• Los Angeles (UTC-8/7) mostly 6am

20. Seoul (UTC+9) 6pm
• Auckland (New Zealand, UTC+12/13)
9pm/10pm
• Manila, Hong Kong (UTC+8) 5pm
• Bangkok (UTC+7) 4pm
• New Delhi (UTC+5.5) 2:30pm
• Barcelona (UTC+1/2) 10am/11am
• Brasília, Buenos Aires (UTC-3) 6am
• Bogotá (UTC-5) 4am
• Los Angeles (UTC-8/7) 1am/2am

21. Brasília / Buenos Aires
(UTC-3) 6pm
• Auckland (New Zealand, UTC+12/13)
9am+1/10am+1
• Seoul (UTC+9) 6am+1
• Manila, Hong Kong (UTC+8) 5am+1
• Bangkok (UTC+7) 4am+1
• New Delhi (UTC+5.5) 2:30am+1
• Barcelona (UTC+1/2) 10pm/11pm
• Bogotá (UTC-5) 4pm
• Los Angeles (UTC-8/7) 1pm/2pm

22. SSE in the world:
per (sub)continent
• The world has almost 200 Independent
nations: No single person can be in charge of
keeping in touch with all those countries
• Need to strengthen (sub)continental
networks and let each network strengthen
intra(sub)continental contacts

23. Africa
• English, French and/or Portuguese
are official in most countries
• French-speaking: close link with
France, by far the best covered
• English-speaking: more efforts
are needed to cover them
• Portuguese-speaking: Portugal is
the key to reach them
• Arabic-speaking: most Arabic-
speaking countries use English or
French too, collaboration with West
Asia

24. Americas
• Latin America: quite well
networked
• North America: Quebec and US
(SEN) are working well, although
more efforts are needed for
intercontinental network
• Other countries: Jamaica, Haiti,
French/British/Dutch territories,
small island countries: efforts are
needed to include them

25. Europe
• Importance to divide it into three
subregions
• Latin Europe (including Greece):
by far the best covered region
• Germanic Europe (including
Finland and Ireland): Germany has
an active network
• Slavic/Baltic: (including Estonia,
Hungary and Albania): former
communist countries, people’s
aversion to whatever may sound
“communist”: more efforts are
required to fit our arguments into
their own local contexts

26. Asia
• A huge continent with linguistic,
religious and cultural diversity
which quite often prevents
dialogues among Asians
themselves
• It’s recommended to subdivide
Asia into 5 subregions to
approach better

27. Asia (1): West
• Languages: Arabic, Hebrew,
Persian, Turkish. Potential
collaboration with North Africa
• Turkey: A network to promote
women’s co-ops is found
• Caucasus: former Soviet-Union
countries, accessible by
speaking Russian together with
Central Asia

28. Asia (2):
Central
• Five former Soviet Union
countries where Russian is still
widely spoken (except
Turkmenistan) while English is
little spoken
• Practically nothing is known
about SSE experiences there
• We need to get into the region
by Russian speakers, together
with Caucasus

29. Asia (3):
South
• Indian subcontinent, former
British colonies
• English is widely spoken among
social movement leaders
• Permanent conflict between
India (Hinduism) and Pakistan
(Islam), preventing the regional
integration
• Lack of national networks

30. Asia (4):
Southeast
• The best integrated subregion by
ASEAN (Association of Southeast
Asian Nations), despite the
linguistic and religious diversity
(Muslim, Christian and Buddhist
countries)
• English proficiency gap between
where it’s official (Brunei, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore) and
the rest
• ASEC (Asian Solidarity Economy
Council) has more presence in this
subregion, producing some
academic works, but they’re rather
focused on looking for
partnership with governments

31. Asia (5):
North-east
• Use of English: limited except
Hong Kong
• South Korea: generouos public
policies by Korea Social
Enterprise Promotion Agency
and Seoul Social Economy
Center, GSEF etc.
• Japan: Activities by Social
Enterprise Study Group, Japan
Institute of Co-operative
Research, Japan NPO Research
Association
• Hong Kong: Social Enterprise
Summit realizes annual events

32. Oceania
• A continent with scarce
population (42 million), mostly
English-speaking
• Three French territories (New
Caledonia, French Polynesia etc.)
and one Chilean (Easter Island)
• No regional or national
network is found

33. Summaries so far
• WSFTE: Unable to expand their network beyond Spanish-speaking countries. Need for another
working group which adopts English as internal working language
• Multilingual efforts: Very important to provide pamphlets with basic information on SSE, as well
as quarterly newsletters, in more than 3 languages. It’ll cost tens of thousands of euros per year, so
fundraising is crucial
• Online meeting time: 3pm Barcelona is too late for far-East and perhaps too early in California, so
it’s better to have at least two meetings for different time zones
• Strategies per region: Especially for English-speaking Africa, non-Latin Europe and Asia.
Importance of Russian as a lingua franca to reach former Soviet Union countries

34. Regional coordinators
• Africa (a few): Especially in English-speaking countries, one for French-speaking countries.
Portugal as a hub for Portuguese-speaking Africa, North Africa together with West Asia
• Americas (1): English-speaking Canada, US, Caribbean…
• Asia (4): West (together with North Africa), Central / Caucasus (together with Russia), South,
Southeast, East
• Europe (2 or 3): Germanic, Slav, perhaps Russian-speaking
• Oceania (1)

35. Next steps
• Coordination with the main team
• What is the first document to be translated into more than 3 languages?
• Enhancement of our networks: English-speaking Africa, Germany, UK, Slavic countries, Asia, Oceania, sometimes
sharing intercontinental networks
• Leveraging sectorial networks (organic agriculture, commons etc.) to reach uncovered countries / regions
• Elaboration of a manual on how to set up national networks: possibly in collaboration with XES (Catalonia), REAS
(Spain), USSEN and FBES (Brazil), among others
• Training intercultural facilitators: We need to be aware of the cultural and epistemological differences among
different continents
• Training more linguists by coaching

36. National networks help
us understand news
from such countries
• Reports, news etc. on SSE tend to
come up in each country’s official
language
• Is WSFTE allowed to refuse this
one (statistics on social economy
in Korea), saying: “Hey, this report
is useless because it’s in Korean?”

37. Thank you! / Merci ! / ¡Gracias! /
谢谢 ! / Спасибо! / 감사합니다!
/ ‫لكم‬ ‫شكرا‬
! / Cảm ơn bạn! / Terima
Kasih! / ขอขอบคุณ! / Danke! /
Obrigado! / Grazie! / Σας
ευχαριστώ! / ありがとう! / សូមអរ
គុណ! / Köszönöm! / Teşekkür
ederim! / ‫متشکرم‬
! / धन्यवाद! /
ধন্যবাদ! / አመሰግናለሁ!! / Tack! /
Kiitos!
M I G U E L YA S U Y U K I H I ROTA
( M I G U E L @ I N E VA L .O RG )