Name Ian MacPherson Role Historian | Died November 16, 2013 Education University of Windsor | |
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Books Hands Around the Globe, Deep Probings, Reaching Outward and Upw, Community‑University Research Partnersh, One Path to Co‑opera | ||
Ian MacPherson (1939 – November 16, 2013) was a Canadian historian, and a supporter of the co-operative movement. MacPherson was born in Toronto, Ontario.
Contents
- Education
- Academic life
- Focus of scholarship
- Involvement with the Co operative movement
- Awards
- References
Education
MacPherson received his B.A. from the University of Windsor in 1960. After working as a high school teacher for four years, he returned to school, earning his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from the University of Western Ontario.
Academic life
MacPherson taught at the University of Winnipeg for 8 years, and founded the Canadian Studies program there. In 1976, he moved to the History Department at the University of Victoria, serving as Chair from 1981 to 1989. He became Dean of the Faculty of Humanities in 1992, but stepped down in 1999 to establish the B.C. Institute for Co-operative Studies (BCICS), later renamed the Centre for Co-operative and Community-Based Economy (CCCBE). He retired from BCICS in 2008. From 2005 to 2013 he served as co-director and Principal Investigator of the National Hub of the Canadian Social Economy Research Partnerships.
Focus of scholarship
Most of MacPherson's work focused on the Canadian and international co-operative movement, but he also wrote on a nineteenth-century Ontario family (the Buells of Brockville), Canadian Prairie rural history, urban history, the history of the Canadian north, and the history of the University of Victoria. Over the course of his career he wrote, edited or co-edited over twenty books and 190 articles. He also participated in over 300 conference sessions and workshops in more than 70 countries.The main goal of his work was to establish Co-operative Studies as a legitimate and important field of study.
Involvement with the Co-operative movement
MacPherson served as an elected leader in numerous co-operatives, including consumers' cooperatives in Winnipeg and Victoria, health co-operatives in Winnipeg and Victoria, a child care co-operative in Victoria, and several credit unions in Victoria, including Pacific Coast Savings. He was a member of the BC Central Credit Union board, the Canadian Co-operative Credit Society, the Co-operative Union of Canada, and the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA). He was the founding President of the Canadian Co-operative Association in 1989. As part of his work with the ICA, he led the process and wrote the basic documents for the Co-operative Identity Statement adopted by the ICA at its Manchester Congress in 1995. It included the first internationally accepted definition of a co-operative, a statement of the basic values of the movement, and a revised set of principles for co-operative organisations.