New Books in Economics

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

Apr 29, 2025

Maliha Safri, a Professor of economics, joins Marianna Pavlovskaya, Stephen Healy, and Craig Borowiak to discuss their book on solidarity cities. They explore the transformative power of cooperative networks in challenging racial capitalism. The conversation highlights diverse initiatives like community gardens and cooperatives that foster social and economic justice. They emphasize counter-mapping as a tool for advocacy and share how these local movements can address unmet needs while building community resilience against systemic divides.

01:06:18

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Quick takeaways

The authors emphasize the vital role of solidarity economies in addressing unmet community needs and fostering social and economic justice.

Counter-mapping is presented as a powerful tool to expose alternative economies and confront the oppressive narratives inherent in traditional mapping.

Deep dives

Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Mapping

The co-authors of the book highlight the significance of their interdisciplinary collaboration, which originated from shared interests in diverse economies and mapping practices. They collectively focused on the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, which facilitated their project aimed at mapping solidarity economies in several cities. This collaboration shaped their exploration of alternative economies as a means to illuminate how local practices can confront racial capitalism. Their approach not only showcases the intertwining of theoretical and practical work but also emphasizes the importance of creating openly accessible resources to engage communities.

Intro

2min

Mapping Solidarity Economies

15min

Exploring Economic Solidarity: History and Contemporary Relevance

2min

Exploring Solidarity in Urban Spaces

13min

Exploring Solidarity Cities and Racial Capitalism

2min

Solidarity in Action: Examining Economy Initiatives

20min

Building Community Through Urban Solidarity

8min

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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