ABOUT

In 2017 Dr Caroline Shenaz Hossein created the DISE Lab because she recognized a need for a space to build culturally diverse community economies. In 2018 a group of scholars and activists came together and contributed to The Black Social Economy by Palgrame Macmillan. Together with her colleague Dr. Christabell P.J at the University of Kerala, India an affiliate of the DISE Collective was established in south India. As 2019 we were a dozen feminist scholars leading work to ensure marginalized people are acknowledged in the academe especially those in the Global South. The DISE Collective membership is made up of ardent anti-racist feminists who work on community and academic projects to combat social and business exclusion. #CiteBlackWomen, #CiteWOC.

Each member strives to support the work of each other and to amplify what the collective does both individually and collectively. For example, Dr Hossein and Dr P.J have hosted International Web Conference entitled Cooperatives, Mutual Aid and Solidarity Economies: Experiences From Around The World (available here), and a number of DISE members have given keynotes. The event has been conducted over Zoom by the University of Kerala’s Department of Economics, India both in 2021 and 2022. The recorded and unedited livestream of these conferences are now available here. A more detailed description of the annual conference is available here.

At 2022 IAFFE annual meetings in Geneva, a several of the DISE members presented and had meetings together, as a way to move forward the work. These synergies of meeting online and in person helps to move the work along. In 2022, Dr. Hossein and Dr. Christabell co-edited Community Economies in The Global South: Case Studies About Rotating Savings and Credit Associations and Economic Cooperatives published by Oxford University Press, and a number of DISE members were the contributing editors (Info available here). Dr. Hossein and Dr. Wright Austin are also co-editing (with Kevin Edmonds) another Oxford University Press book Beyond Racial Capitalism: Cooperatives in the African Diaspora (Info available here), and again DISE members are part of the this project. We are working together closely across geographies and amplifying the pluralized solidarity economies of Black and racialized women and excluded minorities across the globe.

Partner Organization

The DISE Collective has paired with Seeds for Change to highlight issues of feminist economies and the contributions of women of colour in the Americas. Currently the DISE Collective and Seeds for Change have collaborated to present the 2022-2023 Worlding Feminist Solidarity Economies Lecture Series.

Meetings and Minutes

Saturday, December 31st, 2022.
Monday November 13th, 2023