{ PAGE } The Libertarian Imaginary of the Solidarity Economy Movement Bruno Frère Chargé de recherches du FNRS Service de sociologie des identités contemporaines, Université de Liège bfrere@ulg.ac.be Juliane Reinecke Judge Business School, University of Cambridge j.reinecke@jbs.cam.ac.uk Unpublished paper, please do not quote or share without permission of the authors. Paper submitted to the CMS pre-workshop “Critical Perspectives on the Third Sector”, Academy of Management meeting in Montreal in August 2010 This paper demonstrates the value of French pragmatist sociology, and particularly the methodological device of a ‘grammar’ to articulate the normative macro-elements that underpin the organizational principles of the solidarity economy movement in France. Our grammatical analysis demonstrates that the loosely coupled movement is held together by a shared libertarian imaginary. We identify as its core four principles about an alternative organization of economic activity: creativity, conviviality, self-management and political activism; and we trace their historical roots in 19 th century libertarian socialism and their renaissance in radical social movements in the 1970s. Analyzing the theorization of the libertarian imaginary provided by Proudhon in the 19 th and movement protagonists in the 20 th century, we argue that the values of the libertarian imaginary have become recombined into a composite construct of complementary, yet potentially conflicting grammatical elements. Presenting a case of a solidarity economy organization, we illustrate how organizational practices are evaluated through a grammatical lens, but also how the movement can loose its