In anthropology, edges are liminal spaces of power and danger, between what is and what could be, giving us permission to build a solidarity economy with cooperative finance. As Tressie McMillan Cottom stated on a recent podcast, “One of the most powerful analytical positions a person can be in is to be in something and not of it. You are both inside and outside at the same time…to see it, not be of it—so you’re not beholden to upholding it.”

We believe in the power of self-determination, community ownership, and democratized capital to regenerate the soils of emerging economies once laid barren by capitalism.

Below we offer a set of “postcards” from some of our journeys. Taken together, the fractals of our experiences offer, we believe, glimpses of a transformation vision, rooted in cooperative finance and a solidarity economy.

Postcard 1: In Dialogue with Du Bois (Johan)

Recently, I visited Great Barrington, MA, birthplace of the great W.E.B. Du Bois and while attempting to take an alleyway shortcut, I stumbled upon a colorful mural honoring his legacy.

I was somewhat familiar with his work. I knew he was an advocate for cooperatives and Pan-Africanism, but I had not read much of it. I became curious about what Du Bois would have to say regarding this strange moment we’re in. I came across an article he penned in 1925 called “Worlds of Color” in which he revisited his claim that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line” and added that the present “Problem of Problems” was “Labor.”

I was struck by his nuanced understanding of racial dynamics and global economics. This was written 100 years ago, yet it seems eerily relevant to our world today. Was he correct? At the time, US unemployment was around 3.2 percent. Yet, considering he was one presidential term away from the Great Depression, which would see unemployment rise to 25 percent, he was surprisingly prescient.

The New Deal, our government’s response to the Great Depression, was, by many measures, an economic revolution. It employed millions through programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), leaving a lasting legacy on social welfare programs and government intervention in economic affairs all while reinforcing and exacerbating existing racial inequalities, especially through redlining.

Read the full article about the solidarity economy and cooperative finance by Johan Matthews and Carolyn Edsell-Vetter at Nonprofit Quarterly.