News

Members of the Community Economies Research Network (CERN) and the Community Economies Institute (CEI) have been saddened by the sudden death of our friend and colleague Silke Helfrich.

CERN members reflect that Silke was brilliant and warm, a magical commoner and friend.

Silke crossed many of our paths in different places and networks. For example, she played a crucial role in a two-day workshop in November 2019 for the writing of the interdependence charter. Her contribution was characterised by her sharp questioning and creativity with language.

In the second keynote at the online CERN Liviana conference, Maliha Safri discussed her recent research on social and solidarity economies, describing these economies as “examples of postcapitalist practices in action.”

Safri started her keynote, entitled ‘Mapping the US Solidarity City: Spatializing Diversity, Difference and Social Justice,’ by outlining the participatory action research project she ran in Asbury Park in New Jersey with people of colour, including ex-prisoners and Spanish-speaking undocumented workers.

How do communities and commons become a meaningful part of how oceans and fisheries are thought about, researched and managed?

This question was explored in Kevin St Martin’s opening keynote of the CERN Liviana online conference, entitled “Creating openings for community and commons in the Digital Ocean.”

The second CERN Liviana Online Conference was held from 1 to 14 November 2021.

Liviana is a decentralised series of exchanges and symposia that runs for two weeks, providing an opportunity for CERN members to connect and share. The event is based on the sense of openness, free-floating train of thought, and cheerful spirit that the Spanish term liviana connotes.

Plans are already underway for a 2022 Liviana Online Conference.

The full playlist of sessions from Liviana 2021 can be accessed by clicking here.

Throughout September and into October, cultural innovators are invited to participate in five Study-into-Action sessions.

The aim is to connect cultural workers who do not know one another but are building innovative cultural economies.

One of the project co-founders, Caroline Woolward, says “We need to socialize, study, and dream together before we can take collective action, and this first phase of connecting will be followed by a second phase in which we deepen the relationships, explore together the ways that our ideas, desires, and goals might align, and think about the actions that we might take collectively."

The recently released Yellowhead Institute Red Paper, Cash Back, features an insight from Ngāi Tahu academic and CERN member Matt Scobie (from the University of Canterbury in Aotearoa New Zealand).

Cash Back documents how the Canadian economy has been built on the dispossession of Indigenous lands and how, in the process, First Nations peoples were robbed of their economic livelihoods and pushed into dependency on the state.

A principios de mayo de 2021, la Dra. Demet Dinler y los estudiantes del grupo de lectura "Radical Theories in International Development" de la Universidad de Sussex organizaron el lanzamiento en línea del Handbook of Diverse Economies ("El Manual de las Economías Diversas").

El lanzamiento incluyó una sesión de preguntas y respuestas con una de las editoras del Manual, Katherine Gibson. El video del acto está disponible en el canal de YouTube del Instituto de Economías Comunitarias haciendo clic aquí.

In early May 2021, Dr Demet Dinler and students from the Radical Theories in International Development reading group at the University of Sussex organised an online launch of the Handbook of Diverse Economies. 

The launch involved a question and answer session with one of the editors of the Handbook, Katherine Gibson. The video of the event is now available through the Community Economies Institute’s YouTube Channel by clicking here.

A principios de este año, el Centro para Comunidades Resilientes de la Universidad de Virginia Occidental publicó su primer informe anual, "Groundwork: 2020 Reflections".

El Centro fue inaugurado en diciembre de 2019 y, con el apoyo financiero de One Foundation, ofrece programas educativos, becas e investigación de acción colaborativa en apoyo de la justicia social, económica y ambiental.

Earlier this year, the Center for Resilient Communities at West Virginia University released its first Annual Report, Groundwork: 2020 Reflections.

The Center was inaugurated in December 2019 and, with funding support from One Foundation, it delivers educational programs, fellowships and collaborative action research in support of social, economic and environmental justice.

Enhorabuena al miembro del CERN Pieta Hyvärinen, que ha recibido el premio Vuoden Tiedekynä 2021 de la Fundación Kone por su artículo "Mushroom-foraging on Northern Tree Plantations: Diverse Forest Economies and the Problem of Plantationocentrism." (Forraje de Hongos en plantaciones de árboles del norte: Economías forestales diversas y el problema del plantación-centrismo).

El Vuoden Tiedekynä es un premio anual para artículos académicos que demuestran un uso ejemplar de la lengua finlandesa. El objetivo es apoyar y aumentar la apreciación de la escritura académica en finés.

Congratulations to CERN member Pieta Hyvärinen who was awarded the 2021 Vuoden Tiedekynä prize by Kone Foundation for their article "Mushroom-foraging on Northern Tree Plantations: Diverse Forest Economies and the Problem of Plantationocentrism."

Vuoden Tiedekynä is an annual award for academic articles that demonstrate exemplary use of the Finnish language. The aim is to support and increase the appreciation of academic writing in Finnish.

"Cómo sería la economía cultural si amara a los negros y a los indígenas?" Esta es la pregunta que plantea un informe recientemente publicado sobre la concesión de subvenciones artísticas y culturales en Estados Unidos.

“What would the cultural economy be like if it loved Black and Indigenous people?” This is the question posed by a recently released report on arts and cultural grantmaking in the United States.

Solidarity Not Charity: Arts and Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy is a rapid report, with supporting video and website, created for Grantmakers in the Arts by Nati Linares and Community Economies Research Network (CERN) member Caroline Woolard.

Una animación de 3 minutos recientemente publicada recoge los resultados de un proyecto de investigación de 3 años sobre las culturas de la fabricación del siglo XXI.

La animación, Manufacturing Futures: Beyond Business as Usual (Más allá del negocio habitual), destaca cómo los fabricantes pueden producir de forma socialmente justa y ambientalmente responsable.

A recently released 3-minute animation captures the findings of a 3-year research project on cultures of manufacturing for the 21st century.

The animation, Manufacturing Futures: Beyond Business as Usual, highlights how manufacturers can produce in ways that are socially just and environmentally responsible.

The animation is based on in-depth research, funded by the Australian Research Council, into the ways that ten manufacturers are creating high quality jobs for a diverse workforce, redressing environmental harms and benefiting communities through the ways they operate their businesses.

El Departamento de Economía Decolonial de El Cambalache organiza su tercer taller online: "Haz tu propia Economía no Capitalista."

El taller se imparte tanto en inglés como en español, y se desarrollará en sesiones de dos horas los sábados del 29 de mayo al 11 de septiembre de 2021.

El Cambalache fue fundado en 2015 y es un proyecto de economía sin dinero ubicado en San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, hecho por y para las mujeres y todxs en sus redes cotidianas, tal y como aparece en el documental, Inter-Change Value (2016).

Para el taller, el colectivo de El Cambalache facilitará una serie de sesiones sobre "Compartiendo Semillas de la Práctica de El Cambalache: El pensamiento y la praxis de El Cambalache".

The Department of Decolonial Economics at El Cambalache is running its third online workshop: Make Your Own Non-Capitalist Economy.

The workshop is provided in both English and Spanish, and will take place as two-hour sessions on Saturdays from May 29 to September 11, 2021.

El Cambalache was founded in 2015 and is a moneyless economy project located in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, made by and for women and everyone in their everyday networks, as featured in the documentary, Inter-Change Value (2016).

For the workshop, the El Cambalache collective will facilitate a series of sessions on, ‘Sharing Seeds of Practice from El Cambalache: The Thought and Praxis of El Cambalache.’

Uno de los mensajes claros de Caroline Shenaz Hossein es que hay que tomar en serio la experiencia vivida por las banqueras negras y situarlas en el centro de los esfuerzos de desarrollo económico de la comunidad, así como en el corazón del movimiento de cooperativas y de crédito, y de la reforma bancaria.