Education outreach of local solidarity economy initiatives in the context of de(coloniality)

Abstract

The marginal pole of the economy, which amplifies the contradictions in Latin American societies, tends to be universalized when faced with the crisis in the capitalist production system, which is not disconnected from the fatal historic heritage of colonization and coloniality persisting even today. The workers’ sectors that are already excluded or in the process of exclusion are subject to perverse forms of exploitation, and they either adopt survival strategies inside the same capitalist logic and mechanisms or by (re)create practices of reciprocity or associate/cooperative work, without, however, being able to break with capitalist mechanisms. These issues are problematized in the light of the perspective of (de)coloniality through a discussion of authors such as Dussel, Quijano, Mignolo, Santos and others. In this context the article analyzes the experiments of solidarity economy as forms of resistance, (re)invention of a new paradigm for development, a diff erent individual and social lifestyle which aims at self-managed educational principles and work organization. It concludes that, in spite of their vulnerability, when articulated with emancipatory social movements, these experiments can contribute to the recovery of an integral project of life in society, strengthening the utopia of a radically democratic and participative society, free from coloniality.

Key words: solidarity economy, self-managed work, coloniality, emancipation.