Alternative economies

Economic geographers have become increasingly interested in alternative economies in the past decade. While there is agreement that the alternative economy refers to processes of production, exchange, and consumption that differ from the so-called capitalist mainstream, scholars are divided as to how to define alternativeness theoretically. The realist approach takes the alternative to be intentional and self-conscious efforts, usually undertaken on a local scale. Frequently, these efforts are understood as embattled spaces of difference surrounded by a larger economy that threatens to erase them. The second approach to defining the alternative economy relies upon the key concept of performativity; from this perspective, discourse participates in producing the reality it purports to represent. Starting with the observation that noncapitalist economic spaces and practices – household economies, gift giving, barter, alternative finance, self-employment, and cooperatives – are ubiquitous across space and through time and yet remain hidden from view, it theorizes their marginal status as performatively constituted. The latter conceptualization of economic alternatives as ubiquitous but discursively subordinated politicizes research in a particular way. Many scholars interested in alternative economies are involved with action research projects whose aim is to illuminate and strengthen valued elements of a diverse economy and promote ethical practices of economic difference.