During the months of August and October 2023, from Fundeps, together with the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space and with the support of the Heinrich Böell Foundation and the UPC Extension Secretariat, we carry out the Rethinking the Economy Training Cycle: a feminist perspective. From these meetings we built a guide for Reflection and Transformation.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

In this training cycle we met with a wide diversity of spaces to devise resistance alternatives that put the sustainability of life at the center, among them participated: self-managed organizations, enterprises, cooperatives, unions, academic spaces, workers in the field public-state, civil society organizations, social and feminist movements and interested people in the province.

From this enriching experience that consisted of six instances, we proposed to share a systematization with those interested in embarking on a path of (de)construction on the ways in which we understand and participate in the economy. From a critical perspective, this input seeks not only to understand reality from a complex perspective, but also to contribute to its transformation. To this end, we recover and organize both the theoretical and methodological contributions as well as the reflections, questions and dynamics from which the training meetings were built.

The pedagogical orientation of this guide was designed from a feminist perspective, integrating various tools of popular education, sensitivity and affectivity. It is divided into two parts: the first addresses fundamental conceptual categories to analyze the economy from a feminist perspective; The second includes annexes with activities designed to raise awareness and reinforce said contents. As a closing, some poems are presented that seek to connect the reflections and thoughts developed during the meetings, with our deepest and most sensitive emotions.

In this sense, the guide presents several fundamental conceptual and political contributions, among them: the sexual division of labor and its impact on the labor market; the social organization of care and the reproduction of inequalities; the reconfiguration of statehood from feminist perspectives, including the idea of an Open State. It also covers some bills that represent important precedents for the construction of proposals that could give rise to regulatory frameworks for the recognition of care work in community settings.

This guide, then, becomes a commitment and a political tool to socialize various critical and collective knowledge related to the construction of “another fairer economy” in which we can be participants. We hope that this resource will be useful to generate enriching dialogues between the conceptual assumptions of Feminist Economics and the vital and organizational experiences of those who consult it. We hope that this guide helps to question current living conditions and thus be able to build solid foundations that support and strengthen care practices for the sustainability of life.

 

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE HERE

 

Author
Carola Bertona

Contact
Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org

From August 5 to September 30 we will carry out a training cycle on Feminist Economics at the UPC. It is aimed at self-management organizations, enterprises, cooperatives, unions, academic spaces, civil society organizations, social and feminist movements and interested people in the Province of Córdoba.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

Did you know that women dedicate twice as much time as men to domestic and care work, and that this affects them, leading them to situations of greater precariousness and poverty?
We know this data from the contributions of Feminist Economics. This offers a critical perspective that allows us to discuss the limits of conventional economics, recognizing the activities that take place in the realm of “the private” and demonstrating that they are essential for life to happen. It contributes to reflections on the economic aspects of the lives of women and LGTBIQANoBi+ and how they are related to access to their rights.

The critical approach of Feminist Economics allows us to analyze the complexity of economic reality, not only to better understand it but also to transform it. That is why it is a commitment to establish the bases towards “another, fairer economy” in which we can participate.

For this reason, we invite you to participate in a training cycle for mutual learning and critical reflection from the tools provided by the Feminist Economy. It is aimed at self-managed organizations, enterprises and cooperatives, unions, academic spaces, civil society organizations, social and feminist movements and people interested in the subject of the Province of Córdoba.

We hope that this space generates powerful dialogues between the conceptual assumptions of this perspective and the life and organizational experiences themselves, to problematize the living conditions and build foundations that sustain and strengthen experiences that bet on the sustainability of life.

Schedule and contents
The cycle will take place in the City of Arts of the Provincial University of Córdoba, on Saturday August 5, 19 and 26 and September 9, 23 and 30. The meetings will be from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The training is made up of 4 modules organized in a comprehensive and sequenced manner to be able to delve into specific topics and debates at each meeting.

For more information, download the content program 

Inscription
It is possible to enroll in the complete cycle as in 1 or more separate modules. We recommend participation in the entire cycle to have a full and deep understanding of the proposed themes.

Interested persons must register through the following form. We will prioritize the participation of feminized subjects and the LGTTTBIQ+ community.
The registration deadline is July 30 inclusive.

Transfer grants
We will provide transfer scholarships so that distance is not an impediment to participation from different parts of the province of Córdoba.
Because we have a quota of transfer scholarships, we will prioritize those who do not reside in the City of Córdoba and cannot afford transportation.
The application for these scholarships is made through the registration form. We will communicate directly with those who access the scholarship up to a week before the start of the cycle.

Accreditations
People who attend the training, either the full cycle or one of its modules, will receive the corresponding accreditation certificate endorsed by the Feminist Economics Space, Fundeps and the University Extension Secretariat of the Provincial University of Córdoba.

Organized by: Fundeps, Espacio de Economía Feminista and Fundación Heinrich Böll.
Support: Provincial University of Córdoba

More information

• Tools for self-management from a perspective of sustainability of life
• STRENGTHENING OTHER ECONOMY(S): Guide for self-managing organizations
• Other‌ ‌economies: the‌ ‌self-management‌ ‌from‌ a‌ ‌perspective of‌ ‌la‌ Sustainability‌ ‌of‌ la‌ ‌Life
• Ciclo encuentros virtuales sobre Economía Feminista. 
• Cortos audiovisuales sobre Economía Feminista y Autogestión
• Weaving the networks that sustain us: this is how we live the Feminist Economics Meeting

We invite self-managed spaces and organizations from the Other economies to participate in the Provincial Meeting of Feminist Economy. It will be held on September 16 and 17 at the City of Arts (Provincial University of Córdoba).

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

From our Feminist Economy agenda, we are committed to strengthening alternative economies that put life at the center, starting from a feminist approach and valuing forms of collective and democratic construction.

For this reason we invite organizations, self-managed spaces, enterprises and cooperatives from Córdoba to the Provincial Meeting of Feminist Economy.

We hope to generate a space that enables dialogues that allow us to recover, share and build knowledge and practices related to the Feminist Economy, in exchange with the Ecological, Popular and Social and Solidarity Economy from the paradigm of the sustainability of life.

Tentative timeline

The Meeting will be held on September 16 and 17 at the City of Arts.

Friday 09/16 – starts at 5:00 p.m.: we will share an instance of dialogue and exchange with referents of the Feminist Economy.

Saturday 09/17 – starts at 9am:
*Morning and siesta: workshops and exchange spaces (subject to change)
Topics: Management of social networks | Public policies (obstacles and opportunities) | Administrative tools for self-management | Transfeminisms | Digital gap*We close with a fair open to all public. Those who attend the meeting will be able to participate in a holiday.

 

Organize: Fundeps, Espacio de Economía Feminista y Fundación Heinrich Böll.

Support: Universidad Provincial de Córdoba

Adhere: El Resaltador, La Tinta, Ciscsa, Enfant Terrible, Mundo Sur, Unidad Central de Políticas de Género de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNICEPG), Incubadora Feminista Latinoamericana. 

More information: 

• Herramientas para la autogestión desde una perspectiva de la sostenibilidad de la vida.
• FORTALECIENDO OTRA(S) ECONOMÍA(S): Guía para organizaciones autogestivas
• Informe “Otras economías: la autogestión desde una perspectiva de la Sostenibilidad de la Vida”. 
• Ciclo encuentros virtuales sobre Economía Feminista. 
• Cortos audiovisuales sobre Economía Feminista y Autogestión

On December 1, we presented the report “Other economies: self-management from a perspective of Sustainability of Life” together with the Feminist Economy Space of Córdoba and with the support of the Heinrich Böll Southern Cone Foundation. It was a year-end meeting in which we reflected on feminist economics and self-management together with various organizations.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

In the world in which we live, unjust logics of production, work organization and distribution of wealth predominate. They are founded on a neoliberal, colonial and hetero-patriarchal capitalism that legitimizes and sustains inequalities that benefit a few: a male, white, adult, bourgeois, Western, hetorosexual, cisgender around which the entire economy has been organized.Faced with this model that prioritizes markets and the unlimited accumulation of wealth in a few hands, the Other Economies arise. These are constituted, in different measure and form, in real alternatives, and are visible in self-managed organizations of the Feminist, Popular, Ecological, Social and Solidarity Economy. They are characterized by having practices based on mutual support; solidarity and sisterhood; collective support and cooperation; the valuation not only of productive work but also of the work of social reproduction and of life, the recognition of its indivisibility and of its historical feminization and invisibility; the inclusion and care of the life of its members and of nature, avoiding individualistic, selfish and competitive logics that threaten life.

With this north, as of 2020 we have carried out different activities together with organizations and spaces that are committed to a socioeconomic transformation.

2020 was a year of hard work, together with the Córdoba Feminist Economy Space, focused on the production of knowledge based on self-managed experiences and content aimed at making them visible. As a result, we produced the report “Other economies: self-management from a perspective of Sustainability of Life”. We also carry out a cycle of virtual meetings on Feminist Economics in which we reflect, together with organizations and specialists, on the obstacles and possibilities of carrying out and strengthening other logics of production, distribution, consumption and organization of work that are more equitable and focused on persons.

In addition, we built a resource with legal, administrative and tax tools for self-management and four audiovisual shorts. This year, together with the Latin American Feminist Incubator, we carried out a process of internal strengthening of 7 self-managed organizations of the Other Economies of the province of Córdoba, in order to build tools that serve them to advance towards their economic sustainability from a perspective of the Feminist Economics. This implies thinking, building and planning strategies so that, with the available resources, the spaces can carry out sustainable economic processes in the medium and long term, considering and respecting the times of nature as well as the times and needs of its members and of the communities in which they are found.

The event

On December 1, we met to present the aforementioned report “Other economies: self-management from a perspective of the sustainability of life.” This report is the product of a year of research carried out in the middle of the pandemic. Its objective is to begin to know and make visible a small part of the diverse universe of self-managed and community experiences of Córdoba, from the critical perspective that the Feminist Economy offers us, in dialogue with the Popular Economy, Ecological Economy and the Social and Solidarity Economy. That is, from a perspective that aims to subvert the economy and build another that guarantees the provision of everything that is needed for the sustainability of human and non-human life, through economic processes that preserve the planet and are respectful of dignity. human. This approach is that of the Sustainability of Life and we adopt it because it is multidimensional, holistic since it integrates all sustainability: economic, social, ecological, human and the complex and dynamic interrelationships that occur between all of them over time and in specific territories and experiences.

We believe that this perspective has transformative power by allowing us to identify, on the one hand, unequal relations, such as gender, class, racialization processes, among others, which are sustained from biocidal and androcentric logics. But on the other hand, it also helps us to recognize other types of experiences that carry out practices different from those of the dominant economy and that respond to logics typical of Other Economies.

From this place, we understand that the Feminist Economy appears to us as a necessary perspective to think, develop and strengthen alternatives in favor of the sustainability of life since:

• It opens the debate around what are the limits of what we understand by economy, the role of gender in it and the consequent inequalities.
• It broadens the concept of work and recognizes the importance of the works that make up the social and life reproduction, In this way it makes visible and puts at the center of the scene the care that makes life possible, proposes its fair distribution, at the same time that conceives us as interdependent people with each other.
• It questions the foundations of the sexual division of labor.

The report that we present is a synthesis that includes our positioning and also the lines of action in relation to the Feminist Economy agenda that we are building. Agenda that we conceive as strategic and transversal to all of Fundeps since it touches and problematizes all aspects of our life; and from which we generate and strengthen alliances and joint work networks.

• See the presentation of the report: “Other Economies: self-management from a perspective of the Sustainability of Life“

The sustainability of life as a path of transformation

We believe that this type of self-managed experiences can provide us with tools and practices to resolve in a more equitable way the inequalities that are sustained at the cost of the invisibility and exploitation of bodies and lives, mainly of feminized identities and sex-generic dissidences, which are deepened in this context of crisis that we are experiencing: climate, health, social, economic, civilizational and care crisis.

Its existence, strategies and forms of organization, production and consumption, have acquired essential importance in local economies, and are presented to a greater or lesser extent and in different ways, as a real alternative to a system based on violence, oppression , impoverishment and in gender, class, ethnic-racial, age, etc. inequalities.

This does not happen without tensions or nuances since there are different positions and actions taken by these spaces in relation to the State and the predominant capitalist logic. The universe of self-management is extremely broad and heterogeneous. These spaces, like any other, are not exempt from the logic of structural inequality that can even be reproduced inside. However, they have favorable conditions to carry out various practices oriented to the Sustainability of Life, by subverting these situations of looting and inequality.

If we want a democratic and more equitable solution, a transformation, a paradigm shift and a system change that recognizes and strengthens self-managed spaces with the logic of Other Economies that undertake feminized identities and dissidents is urgent and necessary, so that their lives and of their communities are dignified and sustainable. This implies a commitment to profoundly transformative proposals that commit all social actors.

For this, the articulation of local and regional initiatives that aim to this end, and that allow the generation of data, information gathering, visibility, organization, articulation and enhancement of their activities is relevant. We know that what sustains us are networks, so let’s expand, enhance and strengthen them.

Contact

Cecilia Bustos Moreschi, cecilia.bustos.moreschi@fundeps.org