{"id":1158,"date":"2021-09-03T18:19:35","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T22:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/?page_id=1158"},"modified":"2022-12-03T12:09:09","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T17:09:09","slug":"5-13","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/5-13\/","title":{"rendered":"5\/13 | &#8220;Mutualism&#8221; from Praxis to Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1d-61wM5tak\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/sara-horowitz\/\">Sara Horowitz<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/esteban-kelly\/\">Esteban Kelly<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-host\/\">Bernard E. Harcourt<\/a><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">read and discuss<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/621946\/mutualism-by-sara-horowitz\/\">Mutualism<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Sara Horowitz, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nonprofitquarterly.org\/future-horizons-visions-toward-democratizing-our-economy\/\"><em>Future Horizons<\/em><\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nonprofitquarterly.org\/plausible-pessimistic-optimistic-transformative-wild-envisioning-our-futures\/\"><em>Envisioning Our Futures<\/em><\/a> by Esteban Kelly<\/h2>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Wednesday, November 30, 2022<\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/maisonfrancaise.org\">Maison Fran\u00e7aise<\/a>, Columbia University<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How can we move <em>inductively<\/em> from a practice of worker cooperatives and mutuals\u2014from, in effect, practices of concrete utopias\u2014to critical theories of \u201cmutualism\u201d and \u201ccooperation\u201d?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In these <a href=\"https:\/\/cccct.law.columbia.edu\/content\/13-13\">13\/13 seminars<\/a>, we frequently debate the ways in which theory can guide praxis and praxis can inform critical theory. The relationship between the two is always heart and center. And it surely has been at the core of this year\u2019s seminars\u00a0from our very first discussion of <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/1-13\/\">the critical foundations of concrete utopias with \u00c9tienne Balibar<\/a> to the most recent conversation on the relationship between <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/4-13\/\">the writings of Andr\u00e9 Gorz and the praxis of degrowth<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Theory and praxis: the relationship resembles a double helix in an infinite M\u00f6bius loop\u2014forever connected, intricately threaded, taking turns leading, inextricably linked. This week we turn the M\u00f6bius strip inside out to explore how <em>practices<\/em> of cooperatives and mutuals can inform the <em>theory<\/em> of mutualism and cooperation. Who better to explore these questions with than two brilliant mutualists and critical thinkers who have done just that: Sara Horowitz and Esteban Kelly.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sara Horowitz founded a nonprofit in 1995, Working Today, which grew into the Freelancers Union, headquartered in New York City, that provides support, resources, and benefits, including insurance policies, for freelance workers. Building on that experience, Sara Horowitz has continued to organize forms of mutual support, founding another insurance start-up for independent workers, and has developed a theory of \u201cmutualism\u201d that she spells out in her new book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/621946\/mutualism-by-sara-horowitz\/\"><em>Mutualism: Building the Next Economy from the Ground Up<\/em><\/a> (Random House, 2021).<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Esteban Kelly is a founding board member of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network and the executive director of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, having been at the heart of the cooperative movement in this country for years. He co-founded and is a worker-owner of AORTA (Anti-Oppression Resource &amp; Training Alliance), a worker co-op that builds capacity for social justice movements and projects through intersectional training, consulting and facilitation. Building on those foundational practices, Esteban Kelly spells out his vision for a democratic solidarity economy in writings including <a href=\"https:\/\/nonprofitquarterly.org\/future-horizons-visions-toward-democratizing-our-economy\/\"><em>Future Horizons: Visions toward Democratizing Our Economy<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In their writings and practice, Horowitz and Kelly draw on models from around the world. Horowitz writes movingly about her visit to the Emilia-Romagna province in northern Italy near Bologna, which is a hub of cooperative networks, with thousands of interrelated cooperatives of all kinds, including consumer, worker, agricultural, and housing cooperatives. Melissa Hoover and Esteban Kelly also return to Northern Italy\u2019s Reggio Emilia, as a model for innovative educational practices, as well as \u201ccooperative \u2018guilds\u2019 of freelancers in Belgium and France,\u201d women\u2019s collective self-employment associations in India, and the worker cooperatives in Argentina and Spain.\u00a0These formations\u2014which we find throughout the world and across historical periods\u2014form the theoretical foundations of their work on mutualist and cooperativist theory and practice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their writings raise important questions about the role of capital, issues of race and racial capitalism, the use of the term &#8220;mutualism,&#8221; and the relation between mutualism and other forms of political economy, such as socialism and capitalism. These are some of the many questions we address in this seminar on the &#8220;praxis and theory of mutualism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Welcome to Utopia 5\/13!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-7544 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/files\/2022\/12\/Screen-Shot-2022-12-01-at-10.28.59-AM-300x153.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"447\" height=\"228\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/files\/2022\/12\/Screen-Shot-2022-12-01-at-10.28.59-AM-300x153.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/files\/2022\/12\/Screen-Shot-2022-12-01-at-10.28.59-AM-768x392.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/files\/2022\/12\/Screen-Shot-2022-12-01-at-10.28.59-AM.png 792w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 447px) 100vw, 447px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>[To read the full introduction, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-introduction-to-mutualism-from-praxis-to-theory\/\">click here<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sara Horowitz, Esteban Kelly, and Bernard E. Harcourt read and discuss Mutualism\u00a0by Sara Horowitz, and\u00a0Future Horizons and\u00a0Envisioning Our Futures by Esteban Kelly Wednesday, November 30, 2022 Maison Fran\u00e7aise, Columbia University &nbsp; &nbsp; How can we move inductively from a practice&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/5-13\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1603,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1158","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/utopia1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}