Glossary and Resources

This appendix includes a basic glossary for solidarity economy initiative types referred to in the book, especially the inventories laid out in chapter 1. For each, we provide a basic definition, as well as further academic and popular resources.

1. barter networks: Organizations or social systems that facilitate the direct exchange of goods or services without the use of money.

   1. Burke, Brian J. Social Exchange: Barter as Economic and Cultural Activism in Medellín, Colombia. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2022.
   2. Murillo, Rosa. “The Culture of Nonmonetary Bartering.” Inter-American Foundation. November 29, 2017. https://www.iaf.gov/content/story/the-culture-of-nonmonetary-bartering/.
   3. North, Peter. “Voices from the Trueque: Barter Networks and Resistance to Neoliberalism in Argentina.” Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global Perspectives (2008): 16–38.

2. cohousing: A form of intentional community in which private homes are clustered around shared spaces designed for collaborative activities.

   1. Jarvis, Helen. “Towards a Deeper Understanding of the Social Architecture of Co-housing: Evidence from the UK, USA and Australia.” Urban Research & Practice 8, no. 1 (2015): 93–105.
   2. Vestbro, Dick Urban, and Liisa Horelli. “Design for Gender Equality: The History of Co-housing Ideas and Realities.” Built Environment 38, no. 3 (2012): 315–35.
   3. Cohousing Association of the United States. https://www.cohousing.org/.
   4. Foundation for Intentional Community. https://www.ic.org/.

3. collectives of self-employed: Groups of self-employed people who form a collective to achieve some shared benefits (labor protection, banking, education, health services, etc.).

   1. Agarwala, Rina. “Redefining Exploitation: Self-Employed Workers’ Movements in India’s Garments and Trash Collection Industries.” International Labor and Working-Class History 89 (2016): 107–30.
   2. Cranford, Cynthia J., Judy Fudge, Eric Tucker, and Leah F. Vosko. Self-Employed Workers Organize: Law, Policy, and Unions. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.
   3. Freelancers Union. https://www.freelancersunion.org/about/work-for-us/.
   4. Self Employed Women’s Association. https://www.sewa.org/.

4. commons: The idea of the commons refers to the collective community management of shared resources. Examples include when a community collectively self-governs resources such as land, forests, fish stocks, groundwater, and irrigation systems.

   1. Harvey, David. “The Future of the Commons.” Radical History Review 1, no. 109 (2011): 101–7.
   2. Hudson, Blak, Jonathan Rosenbloom, and Dan Cole, eds. Routledge Handbook of the Study of the Commons. New York: Routledge Press, 2019.
   3. St. Martin, Kevin. “Toward a Cartography of the Commons: Constituting the Political and Economic Possibilities of Place.” Professional Geographer 61, no. 4 (2009): 493–507.
   4. Commons Project Foundation. https://www.thecommonsproject.org/about.
   5. On the Commons. https://www.onthecommons.org.

5. community development credit unions (CDCUs): CDCUs are a type of credit union that has a specific focus on low- and moderate-income people and communities that otherwise have limited access to safe financial resources. These institutions countered the redlining practices of mainstream banks and provided a renewed vehicle for community development through affordable financial services.

   1. Fuller, Duncan, and Mary Mellor. “Banking for the Poor: Addressing the Needs of Financially Excluded Communities in Newcastle upon Tyne.” Urban Studies 45, no. 7 (2008): 1,505–24.
   2. Lune, Howard, and Miranda Martinez. “Old Structures, New Relations: How Community Development Credit Unions Define Organizational Boundaries.” Sociological Forum 14, no. 4 (1999): 609–34.
   3. Pavlovskaya, Marianna, and Rob Eletto. “Credit Unions, Class, Race, and Place in New York City.” Geoforum 127 (2021): 335–348.
   4. Inclusiv. https://inclusiv.org/about-us/what-is-a-cdcu/.

6. community gardens: Community gardens are commonly organized either collectively or via individual/household allotment, governed with varying degrees of formality, sometimes with help from local government but at other times starting on abandoned land for which the gardeners lack a title. Some focus on ornamental crops whereas others grow food (see chapter 4).

   1. Horst, Megan, Nathan McClintock, and Lesli Hoey. “The Intersection of Planning, Urban Agriculture, and Food Justice: A Review of the Literature.” Journal of the American Planning Association 83, no. 3 (2017): 277–95.
   2. Lawson, Laura J. City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
   3. Martinez, Miranda J. Power at the Roots: Gentrification, Community Gardens, and the Puerto Ricans of the Lower East Side. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010.
   4. GrowNYC. “Community Gardens.” https://www.grownyc.org/gardens/our-community-gardens.
   5. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. “Community Gardens.” https://phsonline.org/programs/community-gardens/find-your-community-garden.

7. community land trusts: Community land trusts operate by purchasing urban land and withholding it from market circulation in order to put it into community use in perpetuity. They seek to fundamentally transform the nature of capitalist landownership. They are frequently designed to preserve affordable housing or to protect growing spaces.

   1. Davis, John Emmeus. The Community Land Trust Reader. Cambridge, Mass.: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2010.
   2. Gray, Karen A., and Mugdha Galande. “Keeping ‘Community’ in a Community Land Trust.” Social Work Research 35, no. 4 (2011): 241–48.
   3. Women’s Community Revitalization Project. “Community Justice Land Trust.” https://www.wcrpphila.org/cjlt.
   4. Western Queens Community Land Trust. https://wqclt.org/.

8. community-supported agriculture and fisheries: Community-supported agriculture (CSA) consists of a community of consumers who invest in a farming operation, typically outside the city, at the beginning of the growing season. In exchange, members receive a share of the seasonal produce, which is usually distributed in the form of a basket or box of fresh organic produce selected by the growers. Community-supported fisheries involve the same arrangement except with fish. The CSA model mobilizes community networks to sustain farming/fishing operations through the collective sharing of risk and benefit (see chapter 4).

   1. St. Martin, Kevin. “Making Space for Community Resource Management in Fisheries.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91, no. 1 (2001): 122–42.
   2. White, Ted. “Direct Producer/Consumer Transactions: Community Supported Agriculture and Its Offshoots.” In The Handbook of Diverse Economies, edited by J. K. Gibson-Graham and Kelly Dombroski. Northamptom, Mass.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.
   3. Fishadelphia. https://fishadelphia.com/.
   4. Just Food. https://www.justfood.org.

9. complementary currencies: Community-created currencies or mediums of exchange distinct from national currencies and designed to support local economies. Examples include time banks, community currencies, and local exchange trading systems.

   1. Fare, Marie, and Pepita Ould Ahmed. “Complementary Currency Systems and Their Ability to Support Economic and Social Changes.” Development and Change 48, no. 5 (2017): 847–72.
   2. Meyer, Camille, and Marek Hudon. “Alternative Organizations in Finance: Commoning in Complementary Currencies.” Organization 24, no. 5 (2017): 629–47.
   3. North, Peter. Money and Liberation: The Micropolitics of Alternative Currency Movements. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
   4. Steinhauer, Jillian. “That’s Where the Money Is.” Brooklyn Quarterly. November 2013. http://brooklynquarterly.org/thats-where-the-money-is/.

10. consumer cooperatives: A form of cooperative in which consumers are the member-owners. By combining member demand, consumer co-ops are designed to offer better selection, pricing, and delivery of products and services to individual consumers.

    1. Birchall, Johnston. The International Co-operative Movement. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997.
    2. Hilson, Mary, Silke Neunsinger, and Greg Patmore, eds. A Global History of Consumer Co-operation since 1850: Movements and Businesses. Leiden, Neth.: Brill, 2017.
    3. Zitcer, Andrew. Practicing Cooperation: Mutual Aid beyond Capitalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021.
    4. UW Center for Cooperatives. https://uwcc.wisc.edu/resources/consumer-cooperatives/.

11. credit unions: Credit unions are not-for-profit, member-owned financial cooperatives. Surplus is plowed into benefits for members. Credit unions allow each member one vote, with any depositor eligible to serve on decision-making boards (so size of deposit does not equal power). See also community development credit unions and chapter 6.

    1. McKillop, Donal, and John O. S. Wilson. “Credit Unions: A Theoretical and Empirical Overview.” Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments 20, no. 3 (2011): 79–123.
    2. Credit Union National Association. https://www.cuna.org/.

12. fair trade networks: Fair trade networks are networks of producers and retailers that seek to organize supply chains more equitably to avoid exploitation and ensure that small producers in the Global South receive fair compensation.

    1. Bacon, Christopher. “Quality Revolutions, Solidarity Networks, and Sustainability Innovations: Following Fair Trade Coffee from Nicaragua to California.” Ecology 20, no. 1 (2013): 70–179.
    2. Naylor, Lindsay. Fair Trade Rebels: Coffee Production and Struggles for Autonomy in Chiapas. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.
    3. Equal Exchange. https://shop.equalexchange.coop.

13. food cooperatives: A food cooperative is a grocery store cooperative in which consumers are the member-owners. By combining member demand, food co-ops are designed to offer better selection, pricing, and delivery of products and services to individual consumers.

    1. Knupfer, Anne Meis. Food Co-ops in America: Communities, Consumption, and Economic Democracy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013.
    2. Zitcer, Andrew. “Food Co-ops and the Paradox of Exclusivity.” Antipode 3, no. 47 (2015): 812–28.
    3. Grocery.coop. “About Us.” https://www.grocery.coop/about.
    4. Park Slope Food Coop. https://www.foodcoop.com/.

14. freecycle networks: Networks (increasingly virtually coordinated) where people post objects or needs, and others in the network either take them or offer them for free. No objects can be sold, but they are passed on for usage by another person.

    1. Sotiropoulou, Irene. “How Environmental Awareness Can Be Practical and Funny While Puzzling Economists: Exchange Networks, Parallel Currencies, and Free Bazaars in Greece.” Journal of Innovation Economics 2 (2011): 89–117.
    2. Buy Nothing Project. https://buynothingproject.org/.
    3. Freecycle Network. https://www.freecycle.org/.

15. housing cooperatives: A type of cooperative in which the member-owners are residents. Affordable housing cooperatives intentionally suppress prices of housing (either for rent or sale) to allow affordability, and they typically require proof that income of residents is at or below the median income for the neighborhood. High flip taxes (taxes upon sale of the housing unit), a binding commitment to sell at prices determined by a formula to limit the equity that can be gained, and common rules against subleasing all ensure that housing is used for shelter rather than investment returns on a commodity (see chapter 6).

    1. Achtenberg, Emily Paradise, and Peter Marcuse. “Toward the Decommodification of Housing.” In Critical Perspectives on Housing, edited by Rachel G. Bratt, Chester Hartman, and Ann Meyerson, 474–83. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986.
    2. Huron, Amanda. Carving Out the Commons: Tenant Organizing and Housing Cooperatives in Washington, D.C. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018.
    3. Foundation for Intentional Community. “Philadelphia Cooperative House.” https://www.ic.org/directory/philadelphia-cooperative-house/.
    4. Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. “About Us.” https://www.uhab.org/about-us/history/.

16. intentional communities: An intentional community is a group of people who have chosen to live together or share resources on the basis of common values. Examples include ecovillages, communes, and cohousing.

    1. Ecovillage Ithaca. https://ecovillageithaca.org/.
    2. Foundation for Intentional Community. “Explore Intentional Communities.” https://www.ic.org/directory/.

17. mutual aid: Mutual aid is a form of egalitarian self-organization in which people support one another by providing goods and services on the basis of need and without the involvement of official bodies. Differentiated from charity, mutual aid is designed to be nonhierarchical and is based on a shared understanding that the crises people face are caused by the system they are living under.

    1. Spade, Dean. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity during This Crisis (and the Next). New York: Verso Books, 2020.
    2. Mutual Aid Hub. https://www.mutualaidhub.org/.

18. participatory budgeting: Started in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989, participatory budgeting is a democratic process by which community members directly and democratically decide how to spend part of the public budget.

    1. Baiocchi, Gianpaolo, and Ernesto Ganuza. “Participatory Budgeting as if Emancipation Mattered.” Politics & Society 42, no. 1 (2014): 29–50.
    2. Hagelskamp, Carolin, Rebecca Silliman, Erin B. Godfrey, and David Schleifer. “Shifting Priorities: Participatory Budgeting in New York City Is Associated with Increased Investments in Schools, Street and Traffic Improvements, and Public Housing.” New Political Science 42, no. 2 (2020): 171–96.
    3. Menser, Michael. We Decide! Theories and Cases in Participatory Democracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2017.
    4. Participatory Budgeting Project. “Who We Are.” https://www.participatorybudgeting.org/mission/.

19. producer cooperatives: A form of cooperative in which producers are member-owners who come together to share processing, marketing, or other costs of production. The category includes agricultural, forest, artist, and food-processing cooperatives.

    1. Moran, Warren, Greg Blunden, and Adrian Bradly. “Empowering Family Farms through Cooperatives and Producer Marketing Boards.” Economic Geography 72, no. 2 (1996): 161–77.
    2. Producers Cooperative Association. https://www.producerscooperative.com/.

20. rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs): ROSCAs are small groups of people who gather over a defined period in order to save and borrow together. They pool resources and rotate the sum to be borrowed among members, often at zero interest. These are often especially important for people without access to formal banks.

    1. Hossein, Caroline Shenaz, and P. J. Christabell, eds. Community Economies in the Global South: Case Studies of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations and Economic Cooperation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
    2. Meraji, Shereen Marisol. “Lending Circles Help Latinas Pay Bills and Invest.” Code Switch, April 1, 2014. http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/04/01/292580644/lending-circles-help-latinas-pay-bills-and-invest.
    3. Mission Asset Fund. “Lending Circles Is a Gateway to Empower Community.” https://www.missionassetfund.org/lending-circles/.

21. time banks: An alternative system of exchange that utilizes units of time as currency. The time that someone spends providing a service to another community member is compensated for with a “time credit” that can then be spent to receive other services. One of the largest global time bank examples is in Japan (Fureai Kippu), where members in one part of the country perform care for older adults for community members, which then generates “caring relationship tickets” usable by older adult family members located far away.

    1. Cahn, Edgar S., and Christine Gray. “The Time Bank Solution.” Stanford Social Innovation Review (Summer 2015): https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_time_bank_solution.
    2. Collom E., J. N. Lasker, and C. Kyriacou. Equal Time, Equal Value: Community Currencies and Time Banking in the US. Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate, 2012.
    3. Hayashi, M. “Japan’s Fureai Kippu Time-Banking in Elderly Care: Origins, Development, Challenges, and Impact.” International Journal of Community Currency Research 16 (A) (2012): 30–44.
    4. Seyfang, G. “Working Outside the Box: Community Currencies, Time Banks, and Social Inclusion.” Journal of Social Policy 33, no. 1 (2004): 49–71.
    5. hOurworld. https://www.hourworld.org/index.htm.
    6. TimeBanks.org. https://timebanks.org.

22. unpaid household labor: The many tasks involved in family and household reproduction, including cooking, cleaning, childcare, care of older adults, health care, emotional labor, repairing, and myriad other types of labor for which people are not paid but that account for a large share of how we spend our time. Time-use studies in particular focus on household labor, as well as gender inequality in the division of household labor.

    1. Federici, Silvia. Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. Oakland, Calif.: PM Press, 2020.
    2. Safri, Maliha, and Julie Graham. “The Global Household: Toward a Feminist Postcapitalist International Political Economy.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36, no. 1 (2010): 99–125.
    3. Gender & Work Database. “Conceptual Guide to the Unpaid Work Module.” https://www.genderwork.ca/gwd/modules/unpaid-work/.

23. volunteer collectives: Collectives that are constituted by volunteers coming together for some purpose: for political actions, to produce and distribute some service (for example, public art projects), to provide mentoring, to care for older adults, to reach out to victims of violence, etc. However, volunteer is a relatively new word for a very old practice of sociality, involving labor without payment.

    1. Pickard, Sarah. “Young Environmental Activists and Do-It-Ourselves (DIO) Politics: Collective Engagement, Generational Agency, Efficacy, Belonging, and Hope.” Journal of Youth Studies 25, no. 6 (2022): 730–50.
    2. No More Deaths. “About Us.” https://nomoredeaths.org/about-no-more-deaths/.
    3. SolidarityNYC. solidaritynyc.org.

24. worker cooperatives: A form of cooperative in which workers are the member-owners. Workers regularly assemble and collectively make decisions about what, how, and where to produce. Additionally, workers own the entity, elect management, and control the surplus or profit produced (see chapter 6).

    1. Meyers, Joan S. M. Working Democracies: Managing Inequality in Worker Cooperatives. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2022.
    2. Safri, Maliha. “Worker Cooperatives.” In The Handbook of Diverse Economies, edited by J. K. Gibson-Graham and Kelly Dombroski, 40–47. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.
    3. United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives. https://www.usworker.coop/en/.