Community Economies

Ethan Miller

Contact Details:

University of Western Sydney (Australia)
JED Collective/Giant's Belly Farm (Greene, Maine, US)

Email: ethanmiller (at) riseup.net

Qualifications

PhD (in progress), Doctoral Program in Political and Social Thought, University of Western Sydney (Australia)
MS, Geography (University of Massachusetts Amherst), 2011
BA, Environmental Studies (Bates College, Lewiston, ME), 2000

Research Areas:
  • Rethinking concepts of "economy" and "ecology"
  • The role of discourse in transforming community and regional development practice
  • Postructuralist political theory and practices of radical democracy
  • Actor-network theory, biosemiotics, and "new materialisms"
  • Solidarity economics; networking and synergy-building between cooperative economic projects
Publications

Community Economy: Ontology, Ethics and Politics for Radically-Democratic Economic Organzing

Ethan Miller

This paper explores and elaborates on J.K. Gibson-Graham's concept of "community economy," refracting it into three interrelated dimensions of ontology, ethics and politics, and placing them in conversation with one another via comparative explorations of both “community economy” and “solidarity economy” as contemporary articulations for radically-democratic economic organizing.

Miller, Ethan (Forthcoming, 2013). "Community Economy: Ontology, Ethics and Politics for Radically-Democratic Economic Organizing," Rethinking Marxism.

Occupy! Connect! Create! Imagining Life Beyond 'The Economy'

Ethan Miller

Inspired by and written for the global #Occupy Movement, this text is part theory, part strategy and part call-to-action for the immediate and long-term work of identifying and seizing spaces of democratic practice (occupy!), linking them together in networks of mutual support and recognition (connect!), and drawing on our collective strength to actively create new ways of meeting our needs and making our livings (create!).

Miller, Ethan. 2011. "Occupy! Connect! Create! Imagining Life Beyond "The Economy," in Amber Hickey (Ed.) A Guidebook of Alternative Nows. Los Angeles: Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press.

Rethinking Economy for Regional Development: Ontology, Performativity and Enabling Frameworks for Participatory Vision and Action

Ethan Miller

This thesis involves three interrelated projects: first, a critique of conventional regional development literature; second, an exploration of the "performativity" of (economic) discourse at both conceptual and material levels; and third, a survey of alternative economic ontologies that might help us to imagine more diverse, ecological, equitable and democratic livelihoods.

 

Miller, Ethan. 2011. Rethinking Economy for Regional Development: Ontology, Performativity and Enabling Frameworks for Participatory Vision and Action. MS Thesis. Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA, USA.

Solidarity Economy: Key Concepts and Issues

Ethan Miller

An overview of concepts and strategic organizing practices of the emerging solidarity economy movement.

 

Miller, E. 2010. Solidarity Economy: Key Concepts and Issues, in E. Kawano and T. Masterson and J. Teller-Ellsberg (eds), Solidarity Economy I: Building Alternatives for People and Planet. Center for Popular Economics: Amherst, MA.

Independence from the Corporate Economy

Ethan Miller

This article discusses the power of telling different economic stories, and making connections between diverse initiatives, in the work of imagining and enacting more just and joyful community economies.

 

Miller, E. 2007. Independence from the Corporate Economy, Yes! Magazine Winter Issue.

Other Economies Are Possible

Ethan Miller

Discussion of the history and concept of "solidarity economy" and possible implementations in the U.S. context.

 

Miller, E. 2006. Other Economies Are Possible: Organizing Toward an Economy of Cooperation and Solidarity, Dollars and Sense 266(July/August).

Solidarity Economics: Building New Economies From the Bottom-Up and the Inside-Out

Ethan Miller

A pamphlet discussing the concept of "solidarity economy" as a tool for linking and strengthening emerging networks of cooperative economic projects. Written for use in community and popular education contexts.

 

Miller, E. 2005. Solidarity Economics: Building Other Economies from the Bottom-Up and the Inside-Out, Greene, ME: JED Collective.