Anthropology 341 - Building Solidarity Economies

Community groups and networks of organizers, activists, and developers coalesce around efforts to create cooperative, democratic, and socially just ways of being in the world involving "alternative" economies: things like cooperatives, land-trusts, community-owned finance, fair trade networks, and so on. These projects are both grounded in local communities and linked into global networks including the solidarity economies movement aimed at creating economies that put people and planet before profit. This class will work with two solidarity economy networks in Massachusetts. Our aim is to do work - a combination of engaged service, research, and community dialogues - that helps to perform, inform, and strengthen local efforts and the solidarity economy movement more broadly. We approach this work from the perspective of Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR); a research process in which communities guide the work at hand.

This class is a 6 credit course that includes commitment to 2 weekends and 2 Saturdays work/research/workshop days during the semester (at least 3 out of the 4 weekend commitments is required). The additional 2 credits beyond the 4 credit class listing will be made available as Community Service Learning credits as Anthro 397S (02).