The Community Economies Collective (CEC) and the Community Economies Research Network (CERN) are international collaborative networks of researchers who share an interest in theorizing, discussing, representing and ultimately enacting new visions of economy. By making multiple forms of economic life viable options for action, these diverse, engaged, scholarly and activist efforts aim to open the economy to ethical debate and provide a space within which to explore different economic practices and pathways.
These projects grew out of J.K. Gibson-Graham's feminist critique of political economy that focused upon the limiting effects of representing economies as dominantly capitalist. Central to the project is the idea that economies are always diverse and always in the process of becoming. CERN and CEC developed as ways of connecting and coordinating the work of researchers and activists who document and theorize the multiple ways in which people are making economies of difference and, in the process, realizing their interdependence with others.
Our work aims to
- produce a more inclusive understanding of economy
- highlight the extent and contribution of hidden and alternative economies
- theorize economy and community as sites of becoming
- build sustainable non-capitalist economic alternatives
- foster ethical economic experimentation
- engender collaborations between activists, academics and communities
This website includes information on who we are, how we are rethinking the economy outside of a capitalocentric discourse, and on our research projects that are enacting diverse and ethical economies.
The website also includes resources for academic and community researchers and activists involved in revisioning economic futures, including academic papers and stories of practical interventions in particular places.
The Community Economies website is our contribution to an ongoing conversation about economic futures that put justice and sustainability first.
"This could be what a conversation is--simply the outline of a becoming."
(Deleuze, Dialogues, p.2)
For more information, please contact: ceinfo@uws.edu.au
Funding Organization: Community Economies Collective (CEC) and the Community Economies Research Network (CERN)