Programa del congreso

Feminist Economists have highlighted both the importance of Caring Labor/Social Reproduction, and the importance of intersectionality. Radical Feminist Scholars have also highlighted the undervalued but crucial role of the "solidarity economy/alternate economy/community economy" in addressing provisioning for communities as both an alternative to and a backstop network of support for capitalist market-based solutions to crises of social reproduction. The importance of such networks has been known for a while, but the COVID crisis threw their role into sharp relief, just as prior crises such as debt crises highlighted the value of such networks during times of crises.

One under-studied aspect of such networks is their capacity to work across difference. More specifically, we know that identity-based networks within marginalized groups have been important to promote both survival and provide models for social alternatives to promote social reproduction. This paper opens up a project that examines the various forms by which we can promote solidarity ACROSS difference. More specifically, how do we identify practices that let some solidarity groups show support across identity-differences in race/class/ethnicity/religion/caste/nation? What limits the capacity of other groups who also prioritize in-group community support and social networks from showing this? This paper is the first presentation of a multi-year project that aims to examine this issue. A specific focus is minoritized-to-minoritized, disadvantaged-to-disadvantaged, and South-South networks for such solidarity.

Given that such support, at least from the DAWN network if not before, are a core aspect of Feminist Economics solidarity for transformation, this element of social reproduction is worthy of study. We do of course need to continue our studies of the relationships between dominant and marginalized groups and practices, but given the wealth of historical and contemporary experience on marginal-to-marginal and transformative-to-transformative solidarity, it seems valuable to take stock of this rich experience and highlight the best practices for such work.

Political polarization is undermining efforts to advance sustainability goals. This essay explores Marxist theories of the social reproduction of ideology in contrast with the evolutionary theories of resistance to progress by vested interests. Much has been written by feminists on Marxist theories of social reproduction. Veblen’s theories of resistance tend to be broader, explicitly encompassing a broader range of identity, but are less well known. I consider the implications of these two theories for strategies to overcome resistance.

Why did so many economists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries assign women to a separate sphere ruled by care, love, and self-sacrifice? The central reason, this paper argues, was race. Alfred Marshall and Irving Fisher, most prominently, understood economic development and growth as a racial project whose most important feedback loops were eugenic. They drew the conclusion that achieving progress, and avoiding degeneration, required maternal self-sacrifice.

Analyzing refugees provides an opportunity to problematize standard macroeconomic approaches to economic well-being because refugee communities have no legitimate place within nationalist, neoliberal capitalist structures. Furthermore, once the issue of gender is taken into consideration, the problematic and intersectional constraints created by patriarchal, nationalist, and neoliberal regimes are brought into sharp focus, revealing the way each plays a role in contributing to economic vulnerability. Using qualitative methods, this paper draws on interviews with policy makers and NGO employees working in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey in support of Syrian refugees to explore how nationalism, neoliberalism and and sexism shape vulnerability with an emphasis on the degree to which the three isms identified above work in tandem or in opposition to each other.