DISE Members at CASC 2023
York University hosted the 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, in partnership with the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences from May 29th until May 31st. This event brought together approximately 70 academic associations from humanities and social sciences disciplines.
DISE members Dr. Talia Esnard, Dr. Sherice Nelson, Dr. Michelle Stack, and Dr. Caroline Hossein presented. A summary of each of their work is below.
Summary
Keynote Address
Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein Associate Professor of Global Development and Canada Research Chair Tier 2, University of Toronto
Africana women engage in solidarity economies through a specific form of mutual aid – formally referred to as Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs)–to meet their livelihood needs. These women call themselves the Banker Ladies, and the ROSCAs they run are rooted in equity, mutual aid and self-help. Members decide on the rules and processes of how to make regular contributions to a fund that is given in whole or in part to each member in turn. Canada has a rich history of cooperativism, yet, ROSCAs are ignored, stigmatized and ROSCAs are not valued as they are in the Caribbean. This lecture draws on empirical work that involves interviews with hundreds of Black women in five Caribbean countries, in Canada’s big cities of Toronto and Montreal, as well as in Ghana and Ethiopia for a forthcoming book, The Banker Ladies. This research is calling on policy-makers to fund a ROSCA federation and for all co-operators to correct the citational blindness of Black women co-operators. By valuing informal institutions, as well as acknowledging and remunerating the work of the Banker Ladies is a move towards inclusive financial systems, and by extension it can revolutionize economic development.
Congress Big Thinking Series
We Have Always Known Economic Cooperation! The Diverse Solidarities Economies Collective (DISE) Advances The Practice and Thought of Cooperativism Among Africana People.
Facilitator: Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein
CASC/ANSER Joint Session Reckonings and Reimaginings Caroline Shenaz Hossein This panel examines the cooperative economies of African descended people in Canada, the U.S., and the Caribbean. The reckoning is that no one has to teach or train people of African descent about cooperativism, the concept of pooling goods to counter elite-driven capitalist models is how many excluded Black people push against business exclusion. Mainstream social economy literature often ignores or does not credit Africana people for their role in cooperative building. To correct the erasure, the Diverse Solidarities Economies Collective (DISE) is intentional in its knowledge sharing about member-owned institutions among people of African descent. The practice and theory of Black cooperative systems can be useful to scholars and practitioner in the mainstream social economy and cooperative sectors to move away from the colonial library. In this panel, feminist scholars introduce an abundance of Black political economy scholarship relevant which is relevant for those interested in solidarity economic research and to show how the application of the research can be carried out in society.
Cooperative Educational Institutions
Speaker: Dr. Michelle Stack
Attentiveness to educational governance, theorizing and innovative pedagogic approaches generated in the Global South, by Indigenous peoples, and diasporic communities is a prerequisite to developing a vibrant global educational cooperative movement grounded in gender, racial, disability and climate justice. This presentation will discuss preliminary findings based on interviews with members of cooperative educational institutions in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and North America. We will first discuss our preliminary findings concerning different pedagogic and governance approaches. Finally, we conclude with a question: How might expanding origin stories and openness to different approaches to cooperative education facilitate a global educational cooperative movement?
The Jar: An African American Woman’s Solution for Exclusion From the Formal Economy
Speaker: Dr. Sherice J. Nelson
Racism is a global phenomenon, which is structural with interpersonal and individual consequences. This has been prevalent throughout the history of the United States. Public policy has shown a decisive bend toward anti-blackness producing insecurities that have always been intricately woven into African American’s lives. This denial extends into African American participation in the formalized economy as Blacks dependency on lending institutions, which denied them credit, has restricted their economic power. This work will focus on how Black women overcame their exclusion from the formalized economic system. It will highlight the use of a informal economic system and the lack of access to more formal economic structures. The focus is on structural and institutional racism, which results in the lack of access and predatory lending practices. Such practices pushed Black women to start the “the Jar” system. This system is known as a Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA). This informal system was imperative in keeping their businesses alive and encouraging the growth of other small Black female businesses.
Caribbean Cooperatives: A Meta-Analysis of Historical and Contemporary Pathways
Speaker: Dr. Talia Esnard
Cooperatives have a long history and contribution to Caribbean development. While the peculiarities of these cooperatives have varied across Caribbean countries, they have historically advanced inclusive practices that buffer some of the socio-economic and political vulnerabilities that exist within the region. Using a meta-analysis of the data on cooperatives within the region, the paper highlights the types of cooperatives that have emerged across the region, the specific groups that have benefited from this process, and the diverse activities that have generated to build social and economic capital within the region. The paper will also assess the implications for the advancements of scholarship and public policy for the region.
Yuh Gro’ Wid People? Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAS) is a Sustainable Economic Model for Black Women in the Carribean and Canada
Speaker: Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein
Black women in the African Diaspora engage in solidarity economies through a specific form of mutual aid – formally referred to as Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) – to meet their livelihood and social needs. These women call themselves the Banker Ladies, and the ROSCAs they run are rooted in equity, mutual aid and self-help. The members, mostly women, decide on the rules and processes of how to make regular contributions to a fund that is given in whole or in part to each member in turn. Banker Ladies draw on ancient African traditions of Tontines and Susu that are purposefully informal and prioritize the collective. This paper draws on the empirical work that involves hundreds of Black women in five Caribbean countries, women in the Black Canadian diaspora in Toronto and Montreal, as to locate the cooperative contributions of people of African descent.