Our initiative is driven by an ethical commitment to social justice and the necessity of political action, and the conviction that this commitment can be realized through reframing economic interactions to foreground human needs and relations.
We define human economies as an ethical and analytical holistic approach that starts with people, at the community and grassroots level, and seeks to create a human-centered lens to consider, validate and lend support to the many diverse forms of economic activity in which people are engaged. The human economies framework understands that economic activity is complex and pluralistic, and it includes rather than excludes the wide array of economic activities that are largely unregulated and pursued by unprotected workers. A human economy is focused on the long-term well-being of all humans and their shared planet.
We are a multidisciplinary group of faculty and students interested in putting people first in our discussion of the functioning and the much needed transformation of our economies. Over the past several years we shared our own research and experiences from our diverse array of disciplines which resulted in a common focus on human economies. Our group recognizes the large diversity of economic activities, including not just formal enterprises, but also various kinds of informal economic enterprises that are critical to any discussion of sustainability and social justice.
We are also committed to imagining economic futures that do not yet exist. As opposed to the mainstream abstract view of the economy which is often disconnected from how people actually live, our group is interested in understanding how economies of various kinds are made and remade by people, and how we can build more inclusive, just and sustainable economies.
