Moving away from Colonial Capitalism
We live under a dominant economic and cultural system. This system relies on constant growth by extracting and consuming ever more resources. It relies on exploiting other people and their lands. It relies on violence.
This system is racialised because the extraction of social and economic value is from people of racialised identities. And the history of capitalism is based on the exploitation of colonised people. This system is political because choices are made every day to maintain it.
We are using the term Colonial Capitalism to describe this economic and cultural system.
This system gets presented as natural, universal and a path to progress for everyone. While it has brought benefits to many people, it has come at the expense of many – both humans and beyond human. We are experiencing interlocking social, climate and economic global crises because of this system. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Moving towards nurturing alternative realities
We support work that is trying to nurture alternatives to Colonial Capitalism. This is work that is centring values such as collectivism, cooperation, equity, gifting, interdependence with humans, and beyond human, mutuality, non-violence, shared governance, and decision-making.
At its core, it is a deep embodiment of alternative ways of living, knowing and being in the world that might already exist or have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
This work is in solidarity with Movement-based work. The critical mass (push) that comes through the focus and energy of Movements also needs the critical connections (pull) found in the groups and communities doing their best to nurture these alternative realities.
What work are we funding and supporting?
We are funding people in communities, communities of practice, unconstituted groups, organisations and networks who are modelling and trying to shift to alternative ways of being, knowing and doing in the world.
Currently this work sits mainly under the following themes: –
- Intentional practices that support us to align with different values
- Infrastructure:
o Narratives infrastructure that is in service of transitions towards alternative realities
o Transformational governance approaches that support decentralisation and consensual decision-making.
o Transformational investment approaches that support life-affirming work.
