Comadre Economies Pop Up Shop & Workspace

To close out 2019, we wanted to expand our Just Transition work with a member led cooperative pop-up shop. As we started the dialogue on what alternative economies looked like locally, we had found there are actually several models of women and queer folks in our families using the means available to define economy for themselves, whether through starting their own shop, bartering, creating tandas and trade, for many years there have been multiple expressions of systems based on solidarity instead of exploitation. the road has been long, through conversations from the Trabajadoras del Hogar En Accion Domestic Workers Union, comadres of SWU, and the general membership this work has taken shape in different ways from roundtable, dinners, organizing, zines, markets and now the pop-up shop!

As so often, we know that when resources or "capital" are included, violence is never far behind. While we know the conversation around Just Transition is alot deeper than selling the items we create, it at the same time is a functional example of the power we have to change the way we participate in extractive capitalism. We can create safe spaces that meet our needs and in turn share that with others.

In our Comadre Economies Pop-Up Shop, member and community organizer Laeree helped curate a space that contained items from a diverse group of SWU members and ally spaces such as Fuerza Unida, Échale Books and Evergreen Gardens among others. Open from 12p-8p, the space was available for folks to work out of, shop and attend workshops that helped expand conversations on solidarity economies. we are very excited with the turn out as the members came to support, and new friends who learned about the space off social media became more familiar with our work.

In over a week we had almost 200 visitors marking this as huge success and will revisit the mission of the space as a member led initiative in 2020. If you are interested in being apart of this conversation you can contact comadreeconomies@swunion.org for more information.