About

The intention is to reflect on the local initiatives rooted in low-density territories of the Interior of Portugal, which are assumed as alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. In this range of alternatives, we find a diversity of agendas, be them more transformative and in rupture with capitalism, or more reformist and that seek to fill their insufficiencies.

Because they are located in the interior of Portugal, these initiatives face the imaginary that places the epithet "backward" and "underdeveloped" on these territories or which grants them an a-historical status, tied to a supposedly "authentic" past, lost somewhere in the time and whose vestiges are still visitable.

These initiatives are crossed by the strong drive of development as the only way of organising material and social life, reinforced by the patriarchal vision that reduces the economy to its mercantile dimension and recognises only paid work. This conjugation between developmentalism and patriarchy colonizes the imaginary and makes it difficult to analyze alternative local initiatives based on criteria that are not exclusively market-based, and which address, for example, practices centred on the social and ecological sustainability of territories, the creation of ties of sociability or construction of another political culture.

The aim is to focus specifically on the potential of feminist initiatives, their ability to denature power relations and broaden perspectives on economics and work, bringing to light other forms of collective organization centred on the sustainability of life.

Bio note

Graça Rojão is an activist and has been participating in local initiatives during the last 25 years. She is the director and co-founder of COOLABORA, a social intervention cooperative created 10 years ago in Covilhã. She has a degree in Sociology, specialisation in Citizenship and Gender Equality, and a postgraduate degree in Project Management in Partnership from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra. currently, within the PhD programme in Sociology of the University of Beira Interior, she is developing research on "Alternative local initiatives in the context of hegemonic capitalism".

Activity under ECOSOL-CES