Paper details
| Paper authors | Laura-Alina Fabich |
| In panel on | Communities of Practice as Sites of Solidarity, Resistance and Shifting Power in Humanitarianism |
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Abstract
My research examines how mutual aid networks can serve as alternatives to traditional humanitarian actors through internationally connected yet locally grounded solidarity, thereby supporting the transformation of the malfunctioning aid system.
In times of cascading crises, rising populism, skyrocketing humanitarian needs, and unprecedented funding cuts in the aid sector, the need for alternatives is urgent. Recent developments have only accentuated the inadequacies of the charity-based aid system, along with its associated dependencies and risks for recipient countries and communities.
My study employs ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation with Cecosesola, a red de colectivos—a network of 50+ cooperatives in Venezuela that has provided affordable healthcare, food, funeral, and insurance services to communities for six decades, independent of the state and external funding. Cecosesola operates as a non-hierarchical network practising participatory decision-making, task rotation, and equitable compensation. Self-organised networks like Cecosesola take on state functions, including the provision of water, food, electricity, and healthcare. Especially in countries where international organisations are unwelcome or heavily restricted, these actors develop creative solutions grounded in local knowledge and community trust to provide essential services under extremely challenging circumstances, operating on principles of autonomy, sufficiency, and solidarity. Such mutual aid networks create radical, potentially subversive structures based on prefigurative politics.
This research provides evidence of practical alternatives demonstrating that aid can be implemented differently—in more equitable and sustainable ways grounded in solidarity and subsistence economy.
