Publications

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

The politics of health care reform in the US in the United States has focused for 100 years on the question of whether health care is a commodtiy or right: beyond this political deadlock it is possible to reform care through attention to the conditions under which care is produced as a value and the ethical relation that transpires between care provider and patient.

The emergence of a participatory orthodoxy in the development industry has had enormous positive impact, however discourses of participation are also being used in surprisingly political ways. This paper explores how a “pro-local” discourse amongst development professionals in northern Thailand is being deployed in ways that undermine the goals of empowerment and emancipation that are central to the aims of participatory approaches.

This paper engages with recent geographical debates on alternative economic practices, arguing that insufficient attention has been paid to the scale at which they operate. Through an analysis of recent attempts to 'fix' economic activity at a scale felt to be normatively desirable through alternative currencies, the paper argues that when attempting to build non-capitalist practices, scale matters. The paper discusses processes of financial structuration that limit and channel these spaces through an analysis of localized alternative networks in the UK (Local Exchange Trading Schemes - LETS) and the geographically wider barter networks in Argentina.

Based on the Latrobe Valley Community Partnering Project, this paper introduces new ways of understanding disadvantaged areas, the economy, community and the research process in order to open up new ways of addressing social and economic issues.

This chapter introduces the focus group as a method for qualitative social research.

This paper introduces a poststructuralist influenced participatory action research project seeking to develop new pathways for economic and community development in the context of a declining region.

This chapter elaborates an economic and social policy responses to build on the skills and ideas of marginalised groups.

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.

In this paper interpreting mushroom hunting as part of the diverse economy facilitates its place independent of environmental protection strategies like green capitalism, which fail in part because they ignore non-capitalist resource use and extraction activities that do not fit within market oriented approaches to resource management.

This paper describes 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.

This paper offers a synopsis of the key findings of my PhD Thesis which explored the politics of development practice and theories of postdevelopment. Drawing on a series of case studies from northern Thailand, I argue that development is always political, whether it is being shaped by a politics of emancipation or the international geopolitical concerns of the day. Thus what is required in development practice is a much more aware engagement with the political dynamics at play.

The first paper published during my PhD studies, this article explores how the movement to obtain citizenship rights for highland minorities in Thailand is carefully engaging with dominant discourses of Thai-ness in ways that open up the incompleteness of Thai state hegemony.

In this paper we address the question of ‘what next after poststructuralism’ through a reassessment of area studies. In a narrative of our own involvement with place-oriented research and institutions, we examine the traditional position of area studies in geography and anthropology and its reevaluation by poststructuralist scholars in a number of disciplines. We argue that both prestructuralist and poststructuralist treatments of areas are oriented by a narrative of capitalist development; at the same time, we recognize that traditional area studies has a deep interest in noncapitalist economic practices and relations. It is therefore a resource for those of us who want to create a discourse of economic diversity as a contribution to a politics of economic innovation.

J.K. Gibson-Graham explores two responses to the violence of development – the politics of empire and the politics of place. Drawing on the well-known book Empire by Hardt and Negri, the experience of the SID project on Women and the Politics of Place, and a slum dwellers' initiative in India, she attempts to open up alternatives to the dominance of capital and affirm a new political space.

This article examines survival strategies of urban households in post-socialist cities during the transition from the Soviet system to a market economy. The article links the outcomes of systemic transformation to the daily lives of households and connects urban change induced by mass privatization to class and gender processes inside the households. These other transitions in everyday class and gender processes are consistently overlooked by macroeconomic approaches that dominate among transition theorists and policy consultants.

This article discusses the use of GIS for an alternative analysis of the transition to capitalism in Moscow, Russia in the 1990s. Following the argument for incorporating quantitative methods into feminist research agendas, the article illustrates how GIS can be part of a critical and feminist analysis of economic transition.

This thesis empirically grounds the diverse economies framework and is an early contribution to post-capitalist thought. Specifically the thesis maps the diverse economic practices of various subjects in the Wingecarribee Shire, a local government area on the rural urban fringe of Sydney, Australia. It challenges a capitalocentric view of the economy instead presenting a diverse regional economic landscape with implications for local government planning.

Principles and practices for cultivating a local ethics of economic transformation.

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.

Exploring how recent feminist thinkers are attempting to add women into the economy.

Situates contemporary evaluations of the success of Spain's Mondragon cooperative complex within a tradition of debate about the politics of economic transformation and argues for the development of an economics of surplus that can guide ethical decisions in community economies.

How women's activism in the Philippines, China and Papua New Guinea is helping build and strengthen community economies.

Offers a counter to the common denigration of local economic politics 'in the face of globalization'.

Outlines the Rethinking Economy action research project in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts, highlighting the role of academy-community partnerships in constructing community economies.

This article draws on field research in New England to challenge conventional individualized accounts of fishery dynamics and develop a representation of fisheries as diverse sites of community organization and cooperative management of common property. This is a "re-mapping," both literal and figurative, of the landscapes of fishery practice as a strategy to open more possibilities for communal resource management.

A review of Australian research and policy interventions aimed at communities and regions from the perspective of the Community Economies Project.