The white political economy necessitates the naturalization of colonial violence under the capitalistic system, solidarity can foster affective dimensions of resistance – this an emphasizes necessary consideration before juridical approaches.

Black, Indigenous, and other minority groups tend to congregate in the solidarity economy, also known as the third sector, as a place of refuge when they are marginalized and alienated from the state and private sectors. Not everyone can participate equally in the economy, a fact that is especially true for people of African descent. Economist Gordon Nembhard (2014a), in her work on structures of wealth building in low-income African American communities, argues that building an intentional community allows excluded people to create their own wealth systems. These teachings of collectively building wealth are not new. In “Caliban, Social Reproduction and Our Future Yet to Come,” Black Canadian scholar Mullings (2021) shows that when Caribbean people have had their humanity stripped away, they learned to build in ways that make their own lives whole, as well as those of others they care about. This is the work of the solidarity economy: correcting an inhumane market system that relegates people of African descent, Indigenous people, and other minority groups to the sidelines (see Hossein, 2018). The risk inherent in challenging dominant economic systems forces the solidarity economy into hiding—sometimes in plain sight. People who choose to come together even knowing the risks are building a new economy because they cannot dare to chase formal charities and businesses (Spade, 2020). Research on the social economy highlights the work of White organizers, especially those working to “interact” with other sectors, in this way erasing the cooperative economies of people of color. The Ogoni people of the Nigerian delta (Carr et al., 2001), the Self-Employed Women's Association in India (Bhatt, 2007), the Kuy people in Cambodia (Lyne, 2017), and the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST Landless Workers’ Movement) of Brazil (Dias Martins, 2000) are some of the examples of people using solidarity economies to bring change in business and society. So too are the bottom up efforts of Quilombos of Brazil, the Zapatistas of Mexico, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the Underground Railroad, and the Neechi Commons of Manitoba, Canada. As Black women scholars working in political economy, we choose to use the term, solidarity economy. In our rejection of the language of the social economy, we say no to the erasure of collective organizing done by excluded groups outside in the Global South and historically excluded groups in the West. By choosing the solidarity economy, we highlight the contributions the Black diaspora, Indigenous, and Global South people have made to social economics. We only ever use the “social economy” when the word Black is in front of it. This way, we nullify the generic use of the “social economy” because its European origins do not resonate for many people (Hossein, 2018). We know that many Western countries opt for the term “social economy,” but this concept fails to acknowledge the tensions and exclusions within the economy and the social economy itself. The social economy is also known as the third sector—a sector in which actors are neither state nor business firms. In the third sector, nonstate and noncapitalist institutions remake economies that are inclusive of those left out. The social economy is often told with its origins located in France. In France, the social economy has a “long tradition of defending the right to work and of searching for routes into work,” with a push to consider the inclusion of socially disadvantaged groups (Spear et al., 2017, p. 111). Canada's social economy legacy includes the Antigonish movement on the east coast and the Desjardins movement (cooperative banks) in Quebec. The former movement arose out of a search for solutions to the chronic socioeconomic problems that plagued the Atlantic provinces from the late 1800s (St. Francis Xavier University, 2018). With the help of two priests Coady and Tompkins, poor fisher folk organized into cooperatives to escape poverty and to gain power over their own means of production. Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardin set up the first Caisse Populaire in Levis, Quebec, beginning in the early 1900s, which became one of the most successful cooperative movements in the world (MacPherson, 2007). But it is the story of the working class artisans known as the Rochdale Pioneers, who protested against hazardous work and low wages that has come to dominate what we know about cooperativism (ICA, 2018). Through their cooperative, they provided quality foods and other basic goods at lower prices to the cooperative's members. “Most scholars” recognize this group of pioneers as the first cooperative, dating back to 1844 (Wilhoit, 2005). While these accounts are important to the rich history of the social economy, this history is Eurocentric and acknowledges only formal activities that interact with the state and private sectors. Historians John Curl (2012) and Richard C. Williams (2007) both highlight the contributions of Indigenous, African descended people and folks in the south. Professor Ash Amin (2009) in his edited collection takes note of the ways people, through the situated practice of knowing the local context, come together. In the 1990s, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo took to the streets of Buenos Aires to mobilize against the murders and kidnapings of their sons, husbands, and brothers by the state (Navarro, 1990). This form of protest by the women of Argentina was collective and it took a lot of courage, and they were in no position to negotiate with state officials who were harming them at the time. Those who support an “interactive social economy” miss the point that many people cannot (or will not) interact with the government or private sectors because of the danger to their lives. To assume that actors in the third sector are socially inclined to work with the private and public sectors is a wrong one. Societies which are culturally stratified makes for complications in the allocation of goods. In the edited collection in the Black Social Economy (2018), the point was that the social economy like any other sector contains the tiering of class, race, and gender that affect its actors. Futures of Black Radicalism (Johnson & Lubin, 2017), edited by Gaye Theresa Johnson, and Alex Runin, reveal that many people who have endured enslavement, colonization, systemic racism, and racial capitalism are not ready to cooperate with their oppressors. They also show that Black people and other racially marginalized people will organize on their own. While the social economy is not equipped to reform a corrupt political economic system, the solidarity economy is mindful of action by racially marginalized people as noted in the work of Gordon Nebhard (2014). The solidarity economy is curated by those who have been excluded and who agitate for complete transformation. Black, Indigenous, and racialized people, especially those living in White-dominated countries, have had to struggle and contest openly to make change—and this can be deadly at times (Gordon Nembhard, 2014b; Hossein 2019; Mbembe, 2017). In the first section of our article, we define social economy and solidarity economy to understand why we choose the latter term. In the second section, we explain our use of Black feminist theory, building on Hill Collins’ (2000) political economy work and anchoring our understandings in G.K. Gibson-Graham's theories. We also situate our work within Gordon Nembhard's (2014a) research on intentional communities and organizing during adversity and hostility. The methods we draw on to complete this analysis are based on critical discourse analysis and case studies. In the concluding section, we draw on case studies to show why solidarity helps oppressed people. The social economy has served as a place of refuge for racially marginalized people to access and achieve financial and social goals. However, the history of the social economy largely excludes racialized populations, whose stories of organizing go untold within the Eurocentric perspective of the social economy's white gaze. The stories that dominate our learning about the social economy are the Rochdale Cooperative in the United Kingdom, the Antigonish movement on Canada's east coast, and the Desjardins cooperative movement in Quebec.1 Many social economy practitioners and scholars ignore such examples of the Black experience, failing to grasp the contributions of Black and racialized people, especially women, in informal arenas (Banks, 2020; Hossein, 2013, 2019). The monies for social innovations are redirected away from people, women with the lived experience to bring lasting change. Defining the Social Economy Definitions of the social economy often assume that sectors can interact (Quarter & Mook, 2018). In Canada, the social economy is defined as “a bridging concept for organizations that have social objectives central to their mission and their practice, and either have explicit economic objectives or generate some economic value through the services they provide and purchases they undertake” (Quarter et al., 2017, p. 4). This means that the social economy is distinct from both the public sector (the government) and the private sector (corporations and for-profit businesses). The concept of “bridging” assumes this overlapping of sectors is useful, and while this is true in some contexts, it is not the case everywhere. This definition also presupposes that the three sectors can “engage” and “interact” and that perhaps this is the goal. Nevertheless, how can all three sectors “interact” when conflict and harms are taking place? The definition does not consider the possibility that these three sectors may be in complete opposition to one another. What happens when a segment of society is harmed by and fears the state and corporations or chooses to self-exclude and to not overlap with them? The Fallacy of Bridging Given these tensions in the social economy, it cannot “bridge” the state and private sectors. The meaning of “bridge” in the social economy literature cannot encompass those who are left out or how their needs can be heard. Quarter et al. (2017) offer a classification of the social economy as a means by which to visualize the third part of a capitalist economy. In it, they suggest four categories for social economy organizations: public sector nonprofits, community economic developments, social economy businesses, and civil society organizations. These categories largely comprise a white-washed and generic list of organizations whose work does not prioritize profit. Despite the social economy's definition as “bridging” the state and private companies (Quarter & Mook, 2010), the idea that the three sectors—private, public, and social economy—can work toward a common goal is a fallacy. It discounts the struggles being undertaken in the solidarity economy and the exclusions of groups from the social economy. No room is made for those left out of the system because of racial inequities or racial capitalism. The concept of belonging is lost when we assume that we can “bridge” and build “partnerships.” Such an assumption is erroneous, as the following quote of John A. Powell, a civil rights expert and director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, shows: “Belonging is based on the recognition of our full humanity without having to become something different or pretend we’re all the same. We are always both the same (humanity) and different (human), and are also multiple and dynamic, constantly renegotiating who we are” (Powell, 2021). Powell thus notes that difference is key to making people feel they are free to engage in the economy and society. His point highlights that this notion of “belonging”— that is, taking note of people's identities—is important in considering how goods are shared. The “bridging” concept should recognize the need for extra steps in the current ecosystem of the social economy to remove the alienating politics from within it and to listen to excluded groups and minorities to ensure they have a sense of belonging. Some scholars have invested in this idea of bridging when they write about the social economy. However, they ignore the bias that is within the social economy when they push for this bridging. The Venn diagram in Figure 1 displays the interactive social economy according to Quarter et al. (2017). The spheres depict the overlapping of the three sectors, but the diagram fails to show the exclusions. The actors of the social economy who can negotiate with the dominant powers do so, and those who cannot are relegated to the vague space called “civil society.”