Fight and build: solidarity economy as ontological politics

Abstract

This essay explores the potential of solidarity economy (SE) as theory, practice, and movement, to engender an ontological politics to create and sustain other worlds that can resolve the existential crises of ecological destruction and historic inequalities. We argue that such a politics is necessary to go beyond the world as it is and exceed the dictates of a dominant modernity—capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy—that positions itself as the only singular reality—or One World World (Law J (2011) What’s Wrong with a One World World. Heterogeneities. http://www.heterogeneities.net/publications/Law2011WhatsWrongWithAOneWorldWorld.pdf ). What is needed are alternatives to development in contrast to alternative developments. Over the past decade, the SE movement in Massachusetts has advanced a fight and build approach, which has reframed economy as a matter of concern, as something that communities can, and already do, shape themselves—and that powerfully disrupts the reality of a singular capitalist economy. At the same time, the heterogeneous elements of SE are caught up in and assembling political projects with multiple orientations: modernist, social justice, and ontological (Escobar, Pluriversal politics: the real and the possible, Duke University Press, Durham, 2020). SE movement can remain stuck in a modernist politics of growing and scaling businesses and jobs. Even though a social justice approach attends to power and is more amenable to a relational view of reality where things only exist in interconnection, it too can remain mired in One World World liberal politics of redistribution and market ‘solutions’. How SE movement might actualize an ontological politics is a matter of care, an attunement to how relational worlds are coming into being and maintained. As an ontological politics, SE is not about economy qua economy at all, but about creating and sustaining worlds, pluriversal realities where we can be in solidarity with other people, beings, and planetary life systems.

Grassroots innovation for the pluriverse: evidence from Zapatismo and autonomous Zapatista education

“…The current debate in Latin America and other regions of the world is focused on post-development and its articulation with the study of different alternatives to development as pluriversal paths; for example, projects such as post-extractivism, post-growth, post-patriarchy, post-colonialism, or transmodernity (Escobar 2012 ; Kaul et al 2022 , this issue; Naylor 2022 , this issue). These alternatives are closely related to the radical critiques of many indigenous societies as they are not embedded in the ideology of progress and transcend the Western development project, thus having the potential of relational transformations toward communal autonomy and ethics beyond market exchange (Demaria and Kothari 2017 ; Gudynas 2018 ; Loh and Shear 2022 , this issue).…”

Decolonising money: learning from collective struggles for self-determination

“…Building a democratic solidarity economy is about nurturing and taking care of people and other beings. Solidarity is a form of practice (Loh and Shear 2022;Naylor 2022).…”

The Diversity of Solidarity Economies: A View from Danish Minority Gangs

“…They focus on improving the well-being of individuals and communities through mutual support and cooperation (Razeto 1984;Satgar 2014;Miller 2010;Laville 2023). What defines this type of economy is its aim to empower those who are left behind in the race for profit (Loh and Shear 2022). Despite a scholarly consensus that solidarity economies are articulated very differently around the world, the practices described with this term most commonly fall into a distinct "genre" of business: third-sector non-profit organizations, social enterprises, cooperatives, mutual aid associations, gift economies, to name but a few.…”