Community Economies

This is a chapter on Community Economies for the Routledge Handbook of Global Development. The chapter discusses how a community economies approach to development focuses on seeking out and strengthening already existing post-capitalist worlds. This involves community economies scholars using action research methods to work with community-based partners to help make post-capitalist activities more visible, and then to devise ways and means to build on and strengthen these activities.

The chapter demonstrates the approach by discussing three community economies projects in the Asia-Pacific region (in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Fiji and the Solomon Islands). These projects are characterised by attentiveness to local conditions and to local values and aspirations. Thus, a community economies approach to doing development differently starts by acknowledging the local context and valuing the diverse economic activities and possibilities that are already present.