COURSE
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Spring 2021.
Course webpage

In this class students learned about how communities can organize themselves and their economies in cooperative, humane, and equitable ways. We looked at cooperative enterprises, the solidarity economy, physical and digital commons, and the organizations that spring up during disasters. We distilled lessons that can contribute to building a more liberated world based in racial, climate, and economic justice. For the final project, student teams created speculative futures.

About this project

This class combined historical research with theoretical exploration and practical skill building. We learned about the history of cooperatives and commons, read about assumptions about human nature and the philosophy of hope, and practiced skills for non-heirarchical project management and group facilitation.

The class was originally planned as a small seminar of 12 students. The topic resonated with enough people that I ended up enrolling 60 students in the class. To adapt to the larger class size, I drew from participatory decision-making, un-meeting facilitation, agile project management, futures thinking, and more for the students to be true partners in creating and facilitating the class. Not only did students learn about cooperative economics, they also experienced first-hand the power of non-hierarchical teamwork.