community economies

This piece was written for a Rethinking Marxism (2025) Symposium on The Handbook of Diverse Economies.

Community Economies (CE) is a key term in the growing interdisciplinary subfield of diverse economies (DE) scholarship, a perspective that continually grew from the pioneering feminist political economy and economic geography scholarship of J.K. Gibson-Graham (2006). It defines ‘community’ as a space where humans negotiate the terms of our shared coexistence and in which ‘solidarity’ is one possible disposition.

Social and solidarity-oriented and self-governed processes of organizing economic life have

existed since humans have collaborated to survive. However, the conscious demand and con-

ceptual realization of the social aspects of the economy only arose in Western thought with

the emergence of a primarily market-based exploitative economy and the enclosed commons,

forcing working people into capitalism’s system of production and exchange (McMurtry,

2010; Polanyi, 2001 [1944]).

As ecological and social crises mount, academic work which explores the transformation of unsustainable socio-ecological systems has flourished. Surprisingly, however, there have been few, if any, concerted attempts to consider the resonances and divergences between two of the most prominent approaches to rethinking the economy as we know it: degrowth, and diverse and community economies (DCE), respectively. In this Critical Review, I reflect on resonances and similarities, as they emerge from the academic literature.

We wrote this piece about JK Gibson-Graham's thinking on space and place. It is an updated version of Wendy Larner's earlier chapter.

This report outlines two approaches to assessing the intentions and outcomes of the non-governmental organisation, Life in Vacant Spaces (LiVS), in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Ōtautahi Christchurch presents a useful case study for wellbeing as it continues to recover from the physical and psychological trauma of earthquakes. 

This chapter, written for the Handbook of Alternative Theories of Political Economy, introduces the two primary theoretical traditions that have shaped diverse and community economies research and practice: anti-essentialist Marxian political economy and feminist poststructuralism. The chapter discusses the contribution of these two traditions highlighted how they have shaped the diverse economies and community economies approach.

Letter to Julie was written especially for Antònia Casellas's collection, J.K. Gibson-Graham. Hacia una economía postcapitalista o cómo retomar el control de lo cotidiano [J.K. Gibson-Graham. Towards a post-capitalist economy or how to regain control of everyday life], published by Editorial Icaria, Barcelona.

¿Es el capitalismo la única realidad existente, una única posibilidad en la que no caben alternativas, tal y como insistentemente se repite? ¿Qué futuro podemos esperar bajo este modelo económico que también busca controlar todo lo que es político, social, y personal? J.K. Gibson-Graham es el pseu­dónimo conjunto usado por dos geógrafas económicas feministas que, desde principios de los años 1990, vienen mostrando que una visión alternativa al capitalismo es perfecta­mente posible.