Community economies

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“Our interest in building new worlds involves making credible those diverse practices that satisfy needs, regulate consumption, generate surplus, and maintain and expand the commons, so that community economies in which interdependence between people and environments is ethically negotiated can be recognized now and constructed in the future.”

Gibson-Graham, J.K. “Diverse Economies: Performative Practices for ‘Other Worlds.’” Progress in Human Geography 32, no. 5 (October 2008): 623.
 

“As Stephen Healy (2009) argues, when the capitalist economy is seen as the real, dominant and or most powerful form of economic life, the alternative economy is usually seen as idealistic, inferior and powerless. But if we displace this binary view of the economy with one of radical difference – of diverse capitalist and non-capitalist economic forms – then we open up many more spaces of action without prejudging their transformative potential. From here our task can be to facilitate ethical debates about which practices foster community wellbeing and resilience and to conduct research that supports and grows these practices.”

Gibson-Graham, J.K., and Gerda Roelvink. “The Nitty Gritty of Creating Alternative Economies.” Social Alternatives 30, no. 1 (2011): 30.
 

Catherine Gibson speaking about community economies (2013)