#BlackTrust: The Black Social Economy: Valuing the Informal

PLEASE RSVP. This event will take place on Zoom, and will be live streamed on Facebook. A high quality recording will be made available on Youtube after the event.

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We are excited to welcome noted economist and professor Caroline Hossein and Anjimile as our latest guests for the “Black Trust” series.

Dr. Caroline Hossein studies what she calls the Black Social Economy, a term used to define the ways that Black communities have created alternative economies and performed mutual aid across generations through informal processes and systems to preserve and create wealth.

The Black Social Economy offers alternatives to mainstream markets. Black communities across the world create meaningful livelihoods by forming their own economic arrangements, autonomous from capitalist and exploitative labor practices. Black ways of being, analysis and strategies for surviving and thriving have been compulsively regarded as ‘informal,’ though they have their own histories, traditions and innovations.

Dr. Hossein’s research works to excavate a space of study, liberation and recognition within these traditions in an effort to shift our conversations around finance and economy.

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Anjimile Chithambo, known mononymously as Anjimile, is a queer and trans songmaker based in Boston, MA. When it comes to composition, Anjimile draws upon everything he’s learned, from the African pop beloved by his parents to his time in youth choir to later influences from Iron & Wine and ‘80s music. Inspired by faith, addiction, and Anjimile’s own transition, his debut album Giver Taker tells a small story in each song that encompasses a larger voyage of self-discovery.

Caroline Shenaz Hossein is Associate Professor of Business & Society in the Department of Social Science at York University in Toronto, Canada. She is the Founder of the Diverse Solidarity Economies (DiSE) Collective; Author of award-winning Politicized Microfinance: Money, power and violence in the Black Americas (University of Toronto Press, 2016); co-author of Business & Society: A Critical Introduction (Zed, 2017) and editor of The Black Social Economy in the Americas: Exploring Diverse Community-Based Alternative Markets (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2018). For more than a decade, Dr. Hossein has worked in global non-profits, including managing a community bank in Niger, West Africa and has plenty of contacts for students looking to study and to work overseas.

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Black Trust: Chuck Turner Arts and Lecture Series brings community together to discuss concepts which frame the relationships in a community — trust, belief, and faith. Black Trust is creating a space for people to learn, trust, and believe in each other.