CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Community economy unites two terms that have long been understood as mutually exclusive. Throughout the 20th century, theorists and folk on the ground alike have understood the modern capitalist economy as an expanding and unitary system that, among other things, has been a force displacing and undermining community. Traditional and localised economies were seen and experienced as entangled with and embedded in social relations that, often, resonated with the positive aspects of community such as mutual care, interdependence, recognition, collective wellbeing, and a sense of place; while the ever-expanding capitalist economy appeared as insisting upon individual utility maximisation, self-preservation, anonymity in market exchange, and the homogenisation of culture and place. This relationship of opposition relies upon an understanding of economy as a singular and expanding capitalist system dominating and shaping the social, a system to which community is, at best, subordinate and, at worst, an obstacle. Furthermore, it reduces community to an archaic and pre-modern form of social organisation distinct from economy yet alway