Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence (Event Series)
Decolonising Economics and Kinfolk Network invite you to “Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence”, a collaborative project designed by and for African and Afro-diasporic activists and organisers in the UK.
Curated by Liberatory Economist Nonhlanhla Makuyana, Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence explores the past, present, and future of African and Afro-diasporic economies within the United Kingdom.
In the words of Aurea Mouzinho, in spite of centuries of economic abuse and disenfranchisement through colonialism, imperialism and enslavement “African and Afro-diasporic communities are the custodians and architects of collective, care-oriented, regenerative, and emancipatory economies that have persisted beyond, alongside, and despite the hegemony of capitalist social relations.”
Medicine explores how the African oral history tradition can help us communicate the relationships, tools, and skills vital to historic and contemporary movements for Black economic self-determination. It also aims to aid us with a language we can use to share and retain this vital knowledge.
Inspired by the work of anti-capitalist Black Feminist Economists such as Aurea Mouzinho (Angola), Yannia Sofia Garzon Valencia (Colombia), Zahra Dalilah (UK), Caroline Shenaz Hossein (Canada), and the Black Solidarity Fund (USA), this groundbreaking project aims to record, archive, and revitalise our histories of Black liberatory economics practices from the Self-Help Movements to the mechanisms your Aunty or your Aunty’s Aunty have used to survive the harsh realities of racial capitalism.
Our communities have long been in crisis under white supremacy and now as we watch the rise of facism from Argentina to the Netherlands, as deserts spread and hurricanes intensify, the world’s crises have begun reaching even further.
We know, both at Decolonising Economics and Kinfolk Network that, in these movements and practices we seek to uplift, inspect and redeploy, there exists the economic innovation that can guide us through these crises. The economic wisdom of our communities is evident in the way money moves through families, in diaspora and remittances, in how collective labour ensures harvests are reaped, and even in how funerals are funded.
In this project we hope to visibilise the roadmaps in our lineages that can guide us away from economies rooted in the extraction and exploitation of land and labour, and towards restorative and regenerative social, ecological, and labour relations.
This collaboration between Decolonising Economics and Kinfolk Network is driven by a shared purpose: building power for movements dedicated to Black Liberation.
Kinfolk Network's historic work in fostering a well-connected Black liberation movement—by creating spaces to dream and imagine, and building infrastructures of care—complements Decolonising Economics’ efforts to root economies in racial justice principles and to archive the Black solidarity economics movement. Together, this project aims to provide Black activists and community organisers with tools and space to move towards nourishing economic realities.
We’ve chosen the medicine bag as the totem for this work because it represents healing, requires resources and tools to heal, and understands the causes of illness—namely, extractivism, colonialism, imperialism, and violence.
Sign up for the Political Education Event series here.
Oral Histories in Black Economic Interdependence on 18.09.2024 at 6-8pm BST (online)
Ayuuto Means Help - Savings Circles in the African Diaspora on 23.10.24 at 6-8pm BST in London
The House We Built: Community Housing In The African Diaspora on 19.02.2025 at 6-8pm GMT in Bristol
Connecting African and Diasporic Solidarity Economy Practices on 26.03.25 at 6-8pm GMT (online)
Healing in Community TBC in Glasgow
