ECOSOL-CES reaches 10 years

In 2018, ECOSOL-CES completed its first 10 years of existence.

Throughout these ten years we have learned a lot. We broadened our dialogue with popular and community economic initiatives, as well as with associations and activists. We became members of the Portuguese Network of Solidarity Economy (RedPES). We reflected, with the support of researchers and partners, on the particularities of the Solidarity Economy in Portugal and in Europe, focusing on its recurrent institutional invisibility. We have strengthened our ties with researchers from different countries and continents, especially Latin America, Europe and Asia. Through the First European Summer School on Solidary Economy, we dreamed of building a common agenda; an agenda that would bring to the surface the numerous economic initiatives organized collectively by the citizens themselves and made invisible by not meeting the criteria valued by social entrepreneurship or the institutional requirements imposed by Social Economy. They are diverse experiences in an urban or rural environment that rekindle or recreate community practices, evoke other temporalities and rhythms, form new sociabilities, and value the community knowledge associated with the material production of life.

In these ten years, we have accomplished many objectives that we could not even imagine and did not some others that we much wished. But the results seem very positive because, although we are still a small group, managed to make a remarkable trajectory. So far, 146 events have been organized, including thematic seminars, conferences, panels, support to exchange markets and round talks, as well as the 1st International Summer School, with participants from different countries and continents. In these ten years, Ecosol members have been speaking about Solidarity Economy in various regions of Portugal and in other countries, namely Brazil, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland and Japan. We also received lecturers, researchers and doctoral students who organized seminars and have visited Ecosol-CES, coming from different countries, namely Brazil, Spain, France and Japan. Our current membership is equally diverse, bringing together researchers from Portugal, Brazil, Guatemala and Argentina.

We are proud of trying to broaden the epistemological and theoretical framework of the Solidarity Economy in our events and academic meetings, bringing contributions that question and enrich it. Among the theoretical contributions we discussed, we would like to highlight those associated with rural studies, commons, Feminist Economies and Southern feminisms, postcolonial and decolonial theories, epistemologies of the South, Community Economies, and transition to a post-carbon economy.

With this in mind, we invite you to join the Ecosol-CES Group. Welcome to the next 10 years!

Access the Ecosol-10years folder and learn more about the meeting "Building together the Solidarity Economy": https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rLEsgaHpDTuMZjxkrSrlVZKCk0IHr8K9