ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe how their team project originated and evolved, inviting the reader to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their methods. They focus on the overall conception, organization and execution of the project. Cooperatives have been studied in a variety of ways. In 1963, when B. S. Baviskar began his study of a cooperative sugar factory in Maharashtra, fieldwork was applied primarily to village and community studies. The authors show that cooperatives in India needed to be studied from many angles: political, legal, economic, historical, and so forth. Among the many types, one team member studied a credit co-op, representing the most common type of village cooperative. Another team member studied cooperative irrigation. Several of the outside participants commented that this was perhaps the first attempt to undertake a comparative study of cooperatives in India. Shanti George completed her study of the Choryasi cooperative.
