“The Community Economies Collective (CEC) and the Community Economies Research Network (CERN) are international collaborative networks of researchers who share an interest in theorizing, discussing, representing and ultimately enacting new visions of economy. By making multiple forms of economic life viable options for action, these diverse, engaged scholarly and activist efforts aim to open the economy to ethical debate and provide a space within which to explore different economic practices and pathways.

These projects grew out of J.K. Gibson-Graham’s feminist critique of political economy that focused upon the limiting effects of representing economies as dominantly capitalist. Central to the project is the idea that economies are always diverse and always in the process of becoming. CERN and CEC developed as ways of connecting and coordinating the work of researchers and activists who document and theorize the multiple ways in which people are making economies of difference and in the process realizing their interdependence with others.”

The CEC website hosts a range of resources that will be of interest to researchers and educators on the Commons and Social Economy.

Source – http://www.communityeconomies.org/Home/Key-Ideas

The ice-berg image

“The iceberg is one way of illustrating that what is usually regarded as ‘the economy’ (i.e. wage labour, market exchange of commodities and capitalist enterprise) is but a small set of activities by which we produce, exchange and distribute values in our society. This image places the reputation of economics as a comprehensive and scientific body of knowledge under critical scrutiny for its narrow focus and mystifying effects. The iceberg opens up a conversation about the economy, honouring our common knowledge of the multifarious ways in which all of us are engaged in producing, transacting and distributing values in this hidden underwater field, as well as out in the air. “