By Christa Wichterich and Patricia
Muñoz Cabrera
Direct
Link to Full 11-Page Document: http://62.149.193.10/wide/download/alternatives%20India%20and%20LA.pdf?id=1492
With the dominant neoliberal model of the
economy causing one crisis after another, the search for alternative
development pathways has become an urgent necessity. By linking the macro and
the micro economic levels, WIDE wants to facilitate and support processes which
challenge mainstream economic thinking from a feminist perspective and start
thinking outside the box. In many parts of the world women are developing
conceptual and practical alternatives in a local context, in everyday life or
on a macro level. By compiling experiences from different regions and
countries, promoting transnational feminist dialogues and linking alternatives,
WIDE wishes to contribute to the “fierce struggle to recreate the
world” (Paolo Freire) and to
the decolonisation of the mind.
This briefing paper is based on two earlier publications by
WIDE: In Search of Economic Alternatives for Gender and Social Justice:
Voices from India and Economic Alternatives for Gender and Social Justice:
Voices and Visions from Latin America. These
publications contain short articles collected from India and Latin America. The
essays not only suggest new and
alternative ideas to achieve sustainable development, social and gender justice
in the context of the globalised neoliberal model, at the same time they draft
some general guiding principles and building blocks for identifying and shaping
pathways towards an alternative micro- and macro-economic development agenda. Each
of them proves that women are developing transformative agency on a conceptual
and a practical level, demystifying the TINA ideology (“There Is No
Alternative!”) and are on their way to make TATA a reality: “There Are
a Thousand Alternatives”.
Barbara
Specht - WIDE Advocacy Officer - barbara@wide-network.org