Solidarity economy is today the generic term used in many countries to cover a wide range of economic practises inspired by critical thinking about the dominant economic model and aimed at developing fairer, more democratic and more sustainable alternatives to that model through cooperative and solidarity work. It is true that the people who develop these practises don't always identify with the term solidarity economy. There are several reasons for this dissonance between «the name» and «the thing»: firstly, due to the relative ambiguity of the concept of solidarity, which is strongly appropriated by philanthropic or religious institutions; but also due to the recent appearance of new terminologies whose differences are difficult to grasp, such as transformative, collaborative, civic, circular economies, etc.

The aim of this seminar is precisely to start from the material attributes that characterise the practises of solidarity economy, despite the diversity and atypicality of the ways in which it presents itself, in order to distinguish it from other modalities with a more limited and exhaustive character, such as the social economy, or from modalities based on other attributes that also claim to be an alternative to the market economy.

Bio note
Pedro Hespanha is a sociologist, retired professor at the Faculty of Economics in Coimbra and a founding member of the Centre for Social Studies. He has researched and published in the areas of rural studies, social policies, sociology of medicine, poverty and social exclusion. He has been a visiting professor at several foreign universities and has participated as a principal researcher in various national and international research projects and networks, dealing with active social policies, social exclusion and poverty, employment and unemployment experiences and strategies. He coordinated the Study Group on Solidarity Economy (ECOSOL/CES) from 2008 to 2023.

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