Community Economies

Socially Creative Thinking or how experimental thinking creates ‘other worlds’

JK Gibson-Graham

The KATARSIS research project responds to one of the most pressing questions of our times—how to live together? In EU countries this concern has focused on creating conditions for social cohesion, especially by researching the ways that processes of exclusion and inclusion operate. On the global stage the question of how to live together has gained increasing weight in recent times in the light of climate change, public health challenges and economic crisis. Hard-hitting questions about basic needs, consumption levels, capitalist surplus, and the environmental commons that have been suppressed in the language of ‘cohesion’ and ‘inclusion’ are beginning to surface.

Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2009) Socially Creative Thinking: or how experimental thinking creates ‘other worlds’.

Also presented at the Katarsis conference, 2008. 

Lessons from the Hummingbird

Jenny Cameron

In Dirt!: The Film, Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement in Africa, tells the story of the tiny hummingbird who fights a huge bush fire drop by tiny drop of precious water. What can the little hummingbird tell us about ways of building a sustainable food future? This paper explores this question.

Cameron, J. 2010. Take back the (food) economy: lessons from the hummingbird. Keynote Presentation, Fair Share Festival, Newcastle, October 22-23.

Diverse Food Economies

Jenny Cameron

This paper uses the Diverse Economies Framework to explore initiatives that have been developed to build more sustainable and ethical food futures, and to identify policy and reseach activities that might help strengthen these initiatives.

Cameron, J. and R. Gordon 2010. Building sustainable and ethical food futures through economic diversity: options for a mid-sized city'. Paper presented at the Policy Workshop on The Future of Australia's Mid-Sized Cities, Latrobe University, Bendigo, Australia, Sept 29-30.

Poor Mothers are not poor mothers: Cross-cultural learning between northwest China and Australasia

Kelly Dombroski

This paper takes a look at the practice of ba niao or 'Elimination Communication', where even very small babies are held out to 'eliminate' their waste rather than using nappies! The cross-cultural awkward engagement between two different hygiene understandings sparks changes in the day-to-day domestic practices of a group of Australasian mothers who rethink their use of hygiene products and other 'stuff'.

Dombroski, K. (2010) Poor mothers are not poor mothers: Cross-cultural learning between northwest China and Australasia. Unpublished conference paper presented atA New Generation of Cross-cultural Researchers: Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney September 2010.

Growing the Community of Community Gardens: Research Contributions

Jenny Cameron

This paper discusses a performative research project conducted with community gardeners in Newcastle Australia.

Cameron, J., C. Manhood and J. Pomfrett. 2010. Growing the community of community gardens: research contributions. Paper submitted to the Community Garden Conference, Canberra, October 2010. (Note: The final published version is available online at the Conference Website, pages 116-129).

ABCD meets DEF: Using asset based community development to build economic diversity 2008

Jenny Cameron, Katherine Gibson

This paper reframes existing economic diversity as a community asset that can be built on for community and economic development. ĘIncludes strategies for doing this, and draws on examples from the Philippines and Australia

The contribution of community enterprises to the development of regions 2008

Jenny Cameron

This paper discusses the sorts of ethical economic decisions made by community enterprises, and how this contributes to regional social, environmental and economic well-being.

Teaching a politics of hope and possibility 2007

Jenny Cameron

Introduces three strategies for rethinking the economy with students.

Representing marginalisation: finding new avenues for economic and social intervention 2005

Jenny Cameron, Katherine Gibson

Discusses the limiting ways in which people in marginalised areas are portrayed in policy and research, and introduces a different way of representing marginalised groups and the more enabling economic and social policies that result.

Collaborating with communities: an assets-based approach to community and economic development 2003

Jenny Cameron

This paper outlines a collaborative approach to working with local residents in marginalised communities to develop community and economic development projects. The paper draws from action research conducted in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria, and Eagleby and Logan City, Queensland

Asset-based community and economic development: implications for the social capital debate 2000

Jenny Cameron

Explores some of the limits of measuring and monitoring social capital.

Community economies: economic politics outside the binary frame 1999

Katherine Gibson

Script of a presentation about the contradictory politics of "community" and how this website might help to redefine mainstream understandings of both community and economy.

Stories of success from rural and regional Australia: a video conference 1998

A video conference and workshop that brought together community, academic and industry speakers to showcase how community-based or community-oriented enterprises in four regions of eastern Australia are strengthening regional economies in new ways.