The conceptualization of the popular economy is relatively new and has become a prominent political and theoretical issue in Latin America in recent years, positioning itself as a subject of decisive controversies at both the current and long-term levels. In the first three years of collaborative work in the Working Group on Popular Economies: Theoretical and Practical Mapping (2016-2019), we analyzed its different nuances, controversies, and genealogies from perspectives situated in various contexts across the region. We have succeeded in mapping what we mean when we say that we are dealing with a contested definition, that is, one linked to a debate that is simultaneously epistemological, conceptual, and political. Furthermore, based on our findings, we have opened new avenues and lines of inquiry into how popular economies are reconfigured and function as a political laboratory in the face of the economic and political crisis in the region.

In temporal terms, popular economies emerge in response to the neoliberal dismantling of the wage-earning world as a model capable of including the mostly urban masses, and in response to the deepening of predominantly flexible and unprotected labor regimes within that global framework. Spatially, they appear more generally as an experience of the marginalized or peripheral neighborhoods of Latin American and Third World metropolises, or of the so-called Global South. In some ways, both of these vectors must be considered in a more complex way from our theoretical perspective, and this is what we propose to investigate from a critical standpoint. First, because we want to consider a constellation of practices and concepts where popular economies are not understood as "the other" of work (which always leads to defining them negatively), but rather to question and analyze their proliferation, diversification, and transformation. We maintain that “in these economies, new images of labor conflict are produced, but within a framework of diffuse social conflict, expanding the boundaries of proletarian experience. This means that these economies practically reconceptualize what we understand by work, insofar as they systematize forms of labor that are now the majority in our continent and that do not fit into the category of marginal simply because they are not strictly wage-based” (Gago, Cielo, Gachet, 2018). Second, because we propose, from this perspective, to discuss the very idea of ​​periphery, marginality, and exclusion by rethinking the geographies of work and analyzing the processes of capital valorization as part of a process of colonization toward new territories that are transformed into spaces of conflict. 

In this sense, we attempted to develop the following hypotheses:

1) A conceptualization of the popular economy from the perspective of the workers who comprise it, and also from actors not necessarily conceptualized as workers, especially within the family economy, recognizing and valuing its intense heterogeneity and making this heterogeneity a primary focus of research. This entails understanding the subjects—and more precisely, the processes of subjectivation—beyond the figures of micro-entrepreneurs (neoliberal perspective) and subsidized poor populations (state-centric welfare perspective). We are interested in tracing the historical genealogy of these representations and developing tools for their critique, insofar as they produce stereotypes that either reveal agency in purely neoliberal terms (the all-encompassing refinement of homo economicus) or render them passive as objects of biopolitics. 

2) Popular economies offer a unique perspective for understanding the transformations in the world of work in terms of the recomposition of accumulation processes and in the face of the increasing financialization of social life. In this context, a reconceptualization of labor relations and value production is necessary, as well as the identification of new forms of spending and consumption, and at the same time, collective ways of confronting the public and private debt crisis and its processes of individualization and social fragmentation.

3) These dynamics pose a challenge to the production of rights that is not framed within an ideal horizon of re-proletarianization, but rather arises from the proliferation of experiences conceived and practiced “without a boss,” encompassing a whole series of new difficulties and tensions. Therefore, it is necessary to survey the practices of winning rights, recognition, and union tools that extend beyond traditional union forms and the labor identities associated with them. 

4) In this sense, we propose to deepen the analysis of the experiences of self-management of work, the tools of trade unions and the forms of struggle of the workers of the popular economy; on the one hand, deepening the analysis of the political nature of Latin American popular economies, as other Latin American authors (Tapia 2009; Segato 2014) have pointed out, which is rooted, expressed and constituted in the cultural everydayities and in the horizons of economies and political processes that are knotted in certain situated epistemologies of the region; on the other hand, analyzing the intersection with the processes of migrant strikes and feminist strikes that open spaces to conceptualize these variegated networks from perspectives focused on the renewal of the class struggle and social conflict in the crisis. 

5) We centrally incorporate a gender perspective that values ​​care and domestic economies in different spheres and territories—urban, popular, and Indigenous—at the Latin American level, as fundamental elements in the construction of the everyday fabric of popular economies, but also as an element of their reconceptualization beyond the parameters that have classically constructed the “patriarchy of wages” (Federici 2018, Gago 2019). In this sense, we connect these economies with the forms of struggle of popular feminism that allow us to conceptualize the body as territory, redefining hierarchies and protagonism in and of social struggles on the continent. 

6) To explain the type of fiscal relationship in terms of the State capturing the surplus without associated rights, as well as in terms of the debate on its political representation.

7) Map the relationship of informal economies with financial dynamics, both formal and informal. Identify the instruments of income generation in terms of financial exploitation and, at the same time, investigate the dependence of informal economies on institutionalized and formal economic dynamics, identifying the modes of dependence and economic and financial subjugation, and the chains of dispossession. 

8) Linking popular economies with state subsidies. In particular, analyzing the ways in which the relationship between social movements and the State is being redefined, the forms of articulation, clash, intersection, and differentiation.

9) Understanding changes in family structure as increasingly commercial economic activities are carried out within the domestic sphere, and relating massive indebtedness to the multiple forms of violence linked to gender and race that erupt within the family and territory in times of austerity and crisis, reconceptualizing the relationship between violence, reproduction of life, domestic sphere, work and valorization (Cavallero and Gago 2019).  

10) Link the analysis of the sustainability over time and the persistence of these collective and community experiences with the debate surrounding popular institutions and their social, logistical, productive and reproductive infrastructures, from different perspectives; 1) as a capacity for political-union intervention to achieve gains in the institutional-public-state sphere, 2) as an autonomous instituting capacity, 3) as recognition of those networks of interdependence that, from deep temporalities and with the capacity for renewal and cultural and political creativity, allow the reproduction and invention of ways of living, exchanging, organizing life and territories in different contexts. 

The context of these problems, as we noted at the outset, is marked by a profound redefinition of social conflict and the forms of capital accumulation and valorization at a global level. Therefore, the analysis of practices and concepts in this project involves a mapping dimension, capable of tracing the coordinates of: 1) dispute and occupation of public space: we believe it is relevant to situate and account for the specific conflicts and the construction of spatiality arising from them; 2) the constitution of new types of social and labor organizations capable of dealing with these realities: what organizational processes are underway? What kind of traditions do they align with? What kind of tools for demands and confrontation are created and used? How are these networks sustained during the crisis? What forms of economic exchange do they generate, and how are alternative modes of community finance produced? 3) Interaction-friction-negotiation with institutions and public policies: With which actors are we engaging? Under what conditions? What repercussions do public policies have in this field, and how are they implemented? Who sets the agenda? We consider this range of questions to be linked to the heterogeneous Latin American metropolises. Our research covers Argentina, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Mexico, which allows for a crucial comparative perspective. At the same time, our interest is also broader: on the one hand, because we aim to directly link these political, economic, and social dynamics with the reconfigurations of global capitalism in the civilizational and planetary crisis and with the forces in conflict in this stage of new alliances between neoliberalism and reactionary and conservative forces; on the other hand, because we advocate for deepening, during these next three years of the Working Group, exchanges and dialogues with realities in Africa and Asia. Not only in terms of formal comparativism, but also towards strengthening relationships with authors who investigate the transformations of forms of social organization in urban territories in these two continents, to contribute to developing a deeper and more rigorous transnational perspective, proposing to think together about problems and readings linked to these transnational processes.

Our perspective aims to challenge two commonplaces that establish a recurring binary. On the one hand, the dominant view of informality posits that it is an economy carried out by poor people who engage in disorganized activities outside the legal framework. A whole series of interconnected concepts and premises are linked to this view and must be critiqued: informality as synonymous with illegality and so-called subsistence economies as synonymous with poverty. On the other hand, the alternative view argues that these are urban workers who seek the expanded reproduction of life, rather than capitalist accumulation, and who, in turn, can build solidarity-based forms of work. We emphasize that these assertions are not entirely accurate (Giraldo 2014). We are interested in investigating within the framework of a unique situation: that which characterizes the position of those who operate within popular economies as part of a particular social relationship, insofar as it is a relationship in which the cost structure (tax, goods, and capital) is asymmetrical with respect to the valuation of labor. In this sense, it establishes a type of exploitative social relationship that we must unravel in greater depth. In this case, the capture of surplus labor is channeled through consumption, a regressive tax structure, and extremely high financial costs, making it more difficult to identify and therefore to measure its political impact (Roig 2014; Gago and Roig 2019). Given this context, we ask: In what territories and how are forms of exploitation organized within popular economies? What practices of struggle allow us to renew the confrontation with financial capital, challenging the hierarchical dynamics of gender, race, and class that organize contemporary capitalism? 

This is undoubtedly a multi-layered investigation, but one of fundamental relevance to the continent insofar as it connects with a line of "baroque economies" (Gago 2014). In the book *The Popular Economy in Bolivia: Three Perspectives* (Tassi, Hinojosa, and Canaviri, 2015), the authors identify three other commonplaces that warrant questioning: its confinement to folklore, of momentary interest to some "educated sectors"; its characterization "as a form of everyday capitalism that exposes the weakness and fascination of our popular sectors with foreign ideas"; or, finally, its portrayal as a "problem" by directly associating it with "smuggling, underdevelopment, and corruption." We believe that this series of stereotypes functions as modes of understanding that obscure other practical potentialities of these realities and, above all, isolate them as exceptional, marginal, or abnormal. In research conducted in Bolivia, Cristina Cielo (2013) also criticized the deliberate disconnection of the informal sector from the formal sector, placing particular emphasis on two axes that we consider fundamental to revisit as vectors of analysis: the regimes of legitimization of knowledge and skills, and the property regimes that organize these spaces, their interconnection, and non-linear relationships. As we recently argued, one perspective for thinking politically about popular economies involves asking how they bring democratic principles into the productive sphere itself. 

“It is the material sedimentation of these practices that we are interested in highlighting: experiences of collective construction and management of urban infrastructures, through genuine “subaltern” networks; the rejection of any “miserabilist” management of the right to income and work; the politicization of forms of economic activity that go beyond wage labor (from the multiple experiences of “recovered enterprises” to the equally multiple forms of mobilization and unionization of workers in the “informal” sectors); the critique of the very notion of “minority” (recognized by “neoliberal” multiculturalism in many Latin American countries) based on expansive networks of relationships that have reopened, in an original way, the perspective of “majority” political construction beyond and against all “ethnic” confinement; and the new intersections between environmental issues, struggles for the “commons,” the right to land, housing, and “food sovereignty” (Gago and Mezzadra 2015). We know that in Latin America, these These debates involve a theoretical and practical balance regarding the influential theories of dependency and social inclusion policies, in order to also consider their relationship with critical theories of marginality and insurgent citizenships (Cielo, Gago and Vázquez 2014). 

For this reason, references such as those of Mahmood Mamdani, Abdou Maliq Simone, and Asef Bayat are relevant for tracing the relationship between informal practices and subjectivity, and for viewing Latin America from a perspective beyond itself, connected to territories of the formerly known Third World. We also propose to engage more closely with researchers from other continents to foster an exchange of perspectives and experiences. We also consider it crucial to translate this multiplicity of practices into institutional and, primarily, constitutional terms (the entire debate surrounding Buen Vivir and its diverse interpretations and translations), as well as the link between these popular economies and different religious sectors, mainly Catholic (Coraggio 2015). Finally, taking a fundamental vector, both historical and political, we propose to project this research onto the debates on feminist economics and new forms of dispossession (Federici 2013), creating a political and epistemic intersection between popular economics and feminist economics (Gago 2019).