Boot Camp Summer Workshop: Decolonial Methods in Social and Solidarity Economies

Boot camp workshop on Theory and Praxis in decolonial and non-hierarchical research methods.

August 3-11, 2019

El Cambalache
San Cristobal de las Casas
Chiapas, Mexico

Decolonial economic geography begins with participatory action research into non-western and non-hierarchical economic practices.

While studying decoloniality, one often struggles with how to move from theory to practice. Have you ever wondered how to start a non-capitalist economic project in a collective but didn’t know how to begin? Have you ever wondered how to use participatory action research to create a small social and/or solidarity economy? Are you into commoning? Do you long to do decolonial economic research but don’t know how to engage local and indigenous non-western economic practices within an economic project?

Over the past 500 years indigenous and non-European Latin Americans, slaves and descendants of slaves around the world have been historically and currently denied equal access to participation in the capitalist economy through coloniality. The capitalist economic system does not value most of our knowledge, abilities nor the natural world. Throughout the last five centuries people around the world did not accept that their ways of life were considered poor, nor did they just sit around and lament that they were considered poor. In spite of terrible circumstances of slavery, indebted labor and general oppression they created economic networks of sharing and exchange that were highly varied and creative in spite of not being permitted neither money nor property by colonial or post-colonial governments. These economies have been largely ignored because they were and are in great numbers, women’s economies. Silvia Federici has shown that European women and women in the Americas were systematically denied access to the moneyed economy over centuries as capitalism developed to finally become a world-dominating economy. As we know from diverse economies literature, there’s a lot more to the economy than just capitalism. By understanding and practicing these kinds of non-capitalist economic activities we can decrease our dependence on money and increase our autonomy in resistance to the capitalist economic system.

This workshop encourages participants to bring current research or future research projects for discussion and development during the workshop. We will discuss among facilitators and participants each participant’s project and work through possible frameworks and methodological steps for designing and executing a decolonial feminist social and/or solidarity economy project. Expect readings before and during the workshop. Expect writing in the evenings after the workshop.

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