Advanced Diploma in Popular and Feminist Economies

Class 1: Opening Class. Work and lives without wages beyond informality
Presentation of the diploma proposal, activities, teaching team, academic program and work schedule.

Teachers in charge: Verónica Gago and Ana Julia Bustos

Conceptual summary of the class
In this class, we present introductory reflections on the characterization of popular economies within Latin American debates, offering a critique of the categories of informality and marginality used to conceptualize the productive and reproductive activities of large majorities of urban and rural populations in the region. We propose analyzing popular economies as a composite of subjectivities, networks, and practices that challenge the limits and boundaries of the urban, rebuilding and reinventing from below the bonds of solidarity, community structures, and collective dynamics in the face of dispossession, precarization, and the progressive establishment of the neoliberal logic of individual competition as the dominant form of social relations.
Secondly, the course analyzes the condition of the unpaid worker and the dynamics of the multiplication of labor, exploring different perspectives on the conceptualization of the processes of labor reconfiguration in contemporary capitalism. This aims to develop a broader notion of work and the forms of production and reproduction in "lives without wages." Focusing the analysis on the relationship between the new international division of labor, processes of accumulation, and the multiplication and heterogenization of labor, as proposed by Mezzadra and Neilson, the objective of this class is to propose an expansion of the categories of work and exploitation in popular economies. This will contribute to developing an anthropology of work in the current stage of crisis dominated by global financial capitalism. The course proposes to focus on processes of dispossession, urban and rural disputes over land, access to housing, and the advance of the agribusiness and drug trafficking frontiers, as part of a renewed deployment of multiple forms of violence and dynamics of exploitation in these territories.

Class 2: Primitive accumulation, extractivism and popular economies

Teachers in charge: Verónica Gago and Santiago Azzati

Conceptual summary of the class
This class will introduce the concept of expanded extractivism and the relationship between extraction and exploitation in popular economies from a Marxist theoretical perspective, deepening the debate surrounding the processes of primitive accumulation in Marx and other authors within contemporary critical discourse. It will then propose interpretations of these processes based on concrete experiences and practices that confront the multiple forms of value extraction within the dynamics of production and social reproduction in the networks of popular and indigenous economies in Latin America.

Class 3: Earning a living: crisis, courage, territories

Teachers in charge: Alioscia Castronovo and Cristina Cielo

Conceptual summary of the class
In this class, we propose to begin by discussing a transnational collaborative research project by the Urban Popular Economy Collective on popular economies as territories of operation. We consider popular economies as alternative value-creation platforms that combine economic practices, ways of life, well-being tactics, and strategies for connection, extension, and expansion to produce territories that can be inhabited by urban majorities. The production of value transcends the merely economic, creating activities that include forms of mutual care, resource sharing, and capitalizing on connections to operate together in the city, based on the intersection of people, places, and materials to reproduce life. Furthermore, in dialogue with Susana Narotzky and Niko Besnier, to rethink the economy through the concepts of crisis, value, and hope, we will explore the multiple dynamics and ways of "making a living" that emerge and are reconfigured in times of crisis. We will analyze the complex ways in which people attempt to build "lives worth living," both for themselves and for future generations. In short, we propose a dialogue between Latin American perspectives and the debates on urban popular economies in Africa for a perspective that integrates the debates of the Global South

Class 4: Exploitation and extraction: popular economy and feminist economy

Teachers: Verónica Gago and Cristina Cielo

Conceptual summary of the class

The class aims to introduce and discuss central issues in feminist economic critiques and the links between accumulation, exploitation, and the valorization of labor, particularly with a focus on the different forms of exploitation. Furthermore, it proposes an analysis of the political, reproductive, and political mobilization networks of informal economies in relation to the international feminist strike in Argentina and Latin America. Various discussions from feminist economics have shown that reproductive labor is not limited to the domestic sphere but extends to the reproduction of life in neighborhoods and communities. Many informal economies are woven and built in networks; therefore, it is vital to understand their community dimension and their coexistence with reproductive labor. 

Class 5: Challenges of addressing intersectionality in/from popular economies

Instructor: Cristina Vera. Guest Lecturer: Magali Marega

Conceptual summary of the class
This class aims to delve into the conceptual complexities of popular economies from the feminist perspective of “intersectionality.” This perspective allows us to understand life-sustaining practices as a product of the dynamic intersection of sex/gender, class, and race within historically constructed contexts of domination. We retain the term “intersectionality” because of its genealogy and the emancipatory potential it represents, stemming from Black Latin American feminisms in convergence with Black feminism and the contributions of community and Indigenous feminisms. We emphasize that this perspective does not refer to a sum of segments, but rather to historically shifting relations of domination, resistance, and re-existence.

Class 6: Expanded Reproduction of Life: Between Popular Economics, Feminism, and Political Ecology

Teachers: Cristina Cielo and Santiago Azzati

Conceptual summary of the class
In this class, we present a particular approach to the intersection of feminist economics, reproductive and care studies, and feminist and urban political ecology. This approach focuses on the politics of the commons, that is, those that explore the collaborative aspects involved in the expanded reproduction of life. Developed in Latin America in dialogue with other regions of the Global South, this approach involves redefining the political through the safeguarding and recreation of the commons for re-existence, based on three axes: the materialities of expanded reproduction; the trajectories and interconnections for sustenance; and the modes of cooperation, negotiation, and dispute for re-existence.

Class 7: Self-organization, self-management and production of the common

Teachers: Alioscia Castronovo and Maisa Bascuas

Conceptual summary of the class
In this class, we aim to present the organizational dynamics of social cooperation and the creation of the commons from the perspective of a new popular institutional framework. We will analyze, through field studies and activist experiences, the processes of self-organization and self-management within cooperatives and the union dynamics of the popular economy in Argentina. To enrich and problematize the diverse experiences of self-organization and the strategies of social struggles, we propose different readings to construct a framework for interpreting the processes of producing the commons from various perspectives and territories.

Class 8: Crisis, revolts and popular economies in Peru

Teachers: Anahí Durand and Víctor Miguel

Conceptual summary of the class
In this class, we propose to delve deeper into the Peruvian experience with two approaches that allow us to investigate the dynamics of social conflict from a critique of the logic of informality. This includes a presentation of the emblematic struggle linked to the eviction of the La Parada popular market in Lima, and, on the other hand, a discussion with sociologist Anahí Durand, professor at San Marcos University, member of the Working Group, and former Minister of Women in Peru. This discussion centers on the processes of popular uprisings in recent years in Peru, focusing on the processes of popular economies to consider the possibility of social transformation and a politics of emancipation linked to the search for new constituent processes that confront reactionary, repressive, and violent dynamics on the part of the political and economic establishment.

Class 9: Communal economies, value circuits and disputes over public policies for the popular economy in Venezuela and Colombia

Teachers: Hernán Vargas and Juan Camilo Quesada

Conceptual summary of the class
The focus of this class is linked to the question of what value is at stake in rural areas across different regions of Venezuela and Colombia. It connects the understanding of value production with various productive activities, particularly the experiences of family farming. Family farming, the most widespread form of organization in the world, accounting for 90% of production methods, produces over 80% of the world's food in terms of value and is the sector that generates the most jobs globally. How does this situation play out in Venezuela? Based on the first periodic report from the Venezuelan Observatory of Popular Economies on the "Contribution of Popular Economies to Food Sovereignty" and research conducted with cooperatives in Argentina's popular peasant economies, this class delves into the debate surrounding agroecology, food sovereignty, and the communal economy in the context of the crisis. Additionally, it examines two rural processes in Colombia linked to dynamics considered illegal: coca leaf cultivation and artisanal mining, which are vying for hegemonic power. In the search for answers, the ways in which the actors and groups of actors, subjects of the Popular Economy, become visible in the public space, legitimize their decisions, make their strategies visible and energize their meanings will appear; the aim will be to problematize the notions of value and justice in popular economies in border territories

Class 10: Popular Mobilities, Strategies and Infrastructures

Instructor: Alfonso Hinojosa. Guest lecturer: Nico Tassi

Conceptual summary of the class
Migration, understood as movement, is taken as a specific lens for inquiry. Using migration as a critical perspective allows us to explore how movement and being moved are intertwined, where what is at stake is how movement puts them into practice and the worlds it makes possible. In these new contexts, national spaces and their borders, the cities and territories that are articulated, as well as the diverse practices of self-organization that subjects in motion deploy, lead us to consider an autonomist perspective on migration.

Class 11: Genealogy of markets in the southern Andes and research on globalized popular commerce

Instructor: Ana Julia Busto. Guest lecturer: Juliane Müller

Conceptual summary of the class
Thinking about popular economies as ways of reproducing and earning a living in times of neoliberal crisis also means looking back at the genealogies of political and economic organization in our continent. In our studies, it is essential to examine history, long-term memories, and their fragments that are constantly being re-evaluated in the present; to analyze networks of mobile, migrant, and itinerant popular economies that involve forms of know-how in mobility and strategies of community organization. Circuits of globalized popular trade play a major role in the updated maps of this movement. The work of anthropologist Juliane Müller in this regard is fundamental to understanding how Andean economies, from the local and regional levels, acquire multi-scalar dimensions that ultimately weave transnational connections essential for the circulation of consumer goods throughout the region.

Class 12: New political subjectivities and migrant struggles

Instructor: Ana María Morales Troya. Guest lecturer : Delia Colque Quillca

Conceptual summary of the class
In this class, we aim to present case studies and concrete experiences of the emergence of new migrant political subjectivities from and within popular and feminist economies in Latin America, in connection with similar global processes. Based on ethnographic and activist research, the class will discuss the ways in which common life resists being restricted and governed through mechanisms such as racism and the fixed and reactionary use of borders and cultural identities. We intend to question the system of hierarchical production in the world of work and migration, which involves different political and economic actors of diverse nationalities. Within this framework, we will analyze the emergence of new political and social processes such as the Migrant Workers' Bloc, the Ni Una Migrante Menos (Not One Less Migrant) movement, and the processes of union, production, and political organization of Bolivian migrant workers in Argentina. We will also connect these processes with the struggle of farmworkers in Spain, migrant workers who are challenging modes of production on the land.

Class 13: The home as a laboratory: finances, housing, and essential work

Teacher in charge: Verónica Gago. Guest lecturer : Lucía Cavallero

Conceptual summary of the class. 

This class presents and discusses the research published in the book "The Home as a Laboratory," which summarizes and condenses the questions that arose during the pandemic and is, at the same time, a continuation of the research on the impacts of public and private debt on the daily lives of women, lesbians, transvestites, and trans people, conducted within the framework of the Feminist Intervention and Research Group (GIIF). The meeting will delve into a series of debates related to the following questions: How did the politicization of domestic space—a historical banner and achievement of feminism—impact the public policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic? How did this influence the perception of domestic life as a space of obligatory and unpaid labor?

Class 14: Digital Economy, Logistics and Popular Economies.

Instructor : Ana Julia Bustos. Guest Lecturer : Martín Arboleda

In recent years, we have witnessed significant changes in the economic model, driven by new information and communication technologies, platforms and their methods of generating income, and complex financial mechanisms that operate through algorithm-driven labor. These processes have been termed the “uberization of the economy” or digital economies, platform economies, and involve labor exploitation practices through the use of digital platforms and mobile applications that affect both workers and consumers. In this sense, they raise a wide range of issues that concern us from the perspectives of popular and feminist economics. Based on the work of some invited researchers, we propose opening a new dimension of mapping that visualizes new developments in the modes of production and valorization, which, at the same time, are giving rise to modes of political organization for workers that transcend traditional union forms.

Class 15: Institutional Framework and Public Policies for Popular Economies. Closing Meeting

Teachers: Martha Lucia Bernal, Yenny Ramirez and Alexandre Roig

Conceptual summary of the class
This class proposes to analyze and address the processes of new institutionalization within informal economies. Strengthening the autonomy of organizations, transferring capital, knowledge, and rights, and mediating the asymmetrical relationships between capital and labor are the actions the State must undertake to guarantee a new institutional framework in the world of work. A reflective and comparative dialogue is proposed between the experiences of Argentina and Colombia. From the perspective of union, professional, and political organization, in terms of social movements and public policies that have emerged in Argentina—with its ambivalences, tensions, potential, and limitations—and a broad tradition of research within the Socioeconomics, Institutions, and Development Group at the National University of Colombia, culminating in experimentation with public policies for informal economies at the state and district levels, we will analyze the challenges, limitations, and potential of informal economies.

To participate, it is essential that you register using the online form.

Upon completion of the registration process, you will receive a confirmation in your email.

Classes will begin in June and will conclude in September 2024.

All registered participants will receive the necessary instructions to access the classes, bibliography and discussion forums through the CLACSO Virtual Training Space.

Accessing and navigating the Virtual Learning Environment is very simple and user-friendly. In any case, a technical and academic support team will always be available to you.

Exceptional Criteria: In exceptional cases, and within the first month of the start of the Advanced Diploma program, students may request to withdraw from the cohort and rejoin the following year. In all cases, the reasons for the request must be submitted in writing. After this initial period, no requests will be accepted.

Money paid will only be refunded in cases where the organizing institutions decide to cancel the activity. 

Payment can be made in one installment by credit card, bank deposit, or bank transfer. We also offer the option of paying in 3 installments.

Yes. There will be discounts for students belonging to CLACSO Member Centers and CLACSO Associated Centers, for CLACSO Associate Researchers, and for all those who pay within the discount period.