New Books in Sociology

Maliha Safri et al., "Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation" (U of Minnesota Press, 2025)

May 8, 2025

Maliha Safri, a professor of economics, joins fellow scholars Marianna Pavlovskaya, Stephen Healy, and Craig Borowiak to discuss their co-authored work on solidarity cities. They highlight how cooperative networks in urban settings challenge racial capitalism and foster social justice. Topics include the significance of mutual support systems like worker cooperatives and credit unions, and how grassroots initiatives transform communities. The discussion reveals the urgent need for alternative economic frameworks to address unmet needs and enhance community resilience.

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Quick takeaways

The authors emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in creating solidarity economies that challenge existing racial capitalism structures.

Counter mapping is presented as a powerful method to reveal alternative economic practices and contest social hierarchies through geographic visibility.

Deep dives

Formation of Collaborative Networks

The co-authors emphasize the importance of collaboration across different academic disciplines which led to the creation of their book. Each author brought unique expertise in mapping and alternative economies, stemming from individual research backgrounds. Their collective efforts were spurred by a national-level project in partnership with the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, aiming to create a national map of solidarity practices. This collaboration reflects a shared passion for building alternative social and economic structures that challenge the status quo.

Intro

2min

Exploring Solidarity Economies

15min

Exploring the Roots and Future of Economic Solidarity

2min

Redefining Solidarity in Modern Society

6min

Building Community Resilience through Cooperative Action

3min

Building Solidarity in Urban Landscapes

10min

Building Solidarity against Exploitation

22min

In this episode, Maliha Safri, Marianna Pavlovskaya, Stephen Healy, and Craig Borowiak talk about their new co-authored book Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation (University of Minnesota Press, 2024). This volume is part of the Diverse Economies and Livable Worlds series.

Solidarity economies, characterized by diverse practices of cooperation and mutual support, have long played pivotal but largely invisible roles in fostering shared survival and envisioning alternatives to racial capitalism globally and in the United States. This book maps the thriving existence of these cooperative networks in three differently sized American cities, highlighting their commitment to cooperation, democracy, and inclusion and demonstrating the desire—and the pressing need—to establish alternative foundations for social and economic justice.

Collectively authored by four social scientists, Solidarity Cities analyzes the deeply entrenched racial and economic divides from which cooperative networks emerge as they work to provide unmet basic needs, including food security, affordable housing, access to fair credit, and employment opportunities. Examining entities such as community gardens, credit unions, cooperatives, and other forms of economic solidarity, the authors highlight how relatively small yet vital interventions into public life can expand into broader movements that help bolster the overall well-being of their surrounding communities.

Bringing together insights from geography, political economy, and political science with mapping and spatial analysis methodologies, surveys, and in-depth interviews, Solidarity Cities illuminates the extensive footprints of solidarity economies and the roles they play in communities. The authors show how these initiatives act as bulwarks against gentrification, exploitation, and economic exclusion, helping readers see them as part of the past, present, and future of more livable and just cities. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

This episode is hosted by Elena Sobrino. Elena is a lecturer in Anthropology at Tufts University. Her research explores volunteer work, union histories, and environmentalism in the Flint water crisis. She is currently writing about the politics of fatigue and crisis, and teaching classes on science and technology studies, ethnographies of crisis, and global racisms. You can read more about her work at elenasobrino.site.

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