Living Together: Hansalim as a model for solidarity pathways towards sustainable food systems.

Funded as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellowship, this project investigates how multi-stakeholder cooperatives (MSCs) and the ‘solidarity economy’ can offer sustainable alternatives to the modern industrial food system. The fieldwork focuses on Hansalim in South Korea – one of the world’s largest MSCs. The study aims to foster greater conversation between academics and cooperatives in the East and West, including through a series of academic papers and a publication for popular readership, on the practical and policy lessons for sustainability transformation of the global agri-food system. The research was designed as an in-depth explorative case study including elements of participatory observation, interviews, archival and desk research supplemented by engagement and collaborative research with researchers from Hansalim's Mosim and Salim Research Institute. The first phase of the research process began with Korean language study and desk-based research which was supported by a series of regular seminars and one-to-one discussions with Mosim researchers and the paper's co-author. This process generated a set of questions to include in the interview protocols for each type of interview. These questions and interview protocols were reviewed and revised in collaboration with Mosim researchers and the co-author and translated into Korean while interview participants were selected through a combination of identifying expert interviewees and snowball sampling. The second phase involved an iterative process of interviewing, reading and reflecting which spanned from September 2022 through June 2023. During this time the 33 qualitative semi-structured interviews with various Hansalim stakeholders including 15 consumer representatives, 5 activists, 15 employees/practitioners, 30 producers, and 2 founders in various parts of the country from Seoul to Jeju.These were recorded, transcribed by Sonix.ai and finally proof read and organised by a native speaking research assistant to extract the answer text relevant to the interview questions.