Associate Prof. Marianna Pavlovskaya of the Geography Department and CUNY Graduate Center won an NSF grant to study and map the solidarity economy in the United States.
Throughout the world, solidarity economies involve economic practices that orient themselves toward social and environmental sustainability rather than profit maximization and competition. In the United States they include, for example, cooperative businesses, community land trusts, credit unions, community supported agriculture, and other businesses that prioritize cooperation, democratic participation, and social inclusion. The solidarity economy has substantial but unrecognized positive impacts because it helps to increase economic activity, employment, well-being, and overall socio-environmental sustainability by putting first the interests of the working people, consumers, and communities. It thus might be able to influence the formation of new models of development as we begin looking for them in the aftermath of the current financial and economic crises. Dr. Pavlovskaya, along with colleagues from three universities, Haverford, Drew, and Worcester State will map, analyze, and estimate the impact of such ethical forms of production and consumption in the United States. In addition to the national scale, her research will examine the solidarity economy in New York City. The research is funded by the National Science Foundation.