This is the second article in NPQ’s series titled Solidarity Economies: Building Community Power. Coproduced with the New Economy Coalition—a coalition of over 100 organizations building the solidarity economy in the United States—this series highlights case studies of solidarity economy ecosystems that are returning wealth and building grassroots power in cities across the country.
Spanish language version, translated by María Luisa Rosal and edited by Lila Arnaud, members of the BanchaLenguas Language Justice Collective is available here. (Versión en español, traducido por María Luisa Rosal y editado por Lila Arnaud, integrantes de la Colectiva de justicia de lenguaje BanchaLenguas, está acesible aquí).
Over the last decade, the seeds of a solidarity economy rooted in cooperatives have been reemerging in New Orleans. Many efforts are still nascent, but we are inspired by how far we have come. Among the 15 local cooperative businesses and democratic collectives we count in our ecosystem, many focus on arts and cultural strategies to strengthen our solidarity economy. These include BanchaLenguas, a language justice cooperative; the worker-owned film production house Studio Lalala; and Civic Studio Design Cooperative. Cooperation New Orleans, founded in 2019, provides an umbrella of support to these cooperative projects by and for artists, culture bearers, and healers through education and outreach, technical assistance, and financing—all with a focus on relationships.
Cooperativism, we contend, is inherent to our humanity. It’s about designing our local economy with care for each other in mind. Of course, building a solidarity economy one cooperative at a time requires a long-term perspective. Culture change is slow, but it is central to us as a movement that we are intentionally creating together. To be effective, we need to get to know one another, center our humanity, and create accessible pathways for all of us to engage.
Fittingly, this article was created in collaboration: authored by Latona Giwa, cofounder of New Orleans’s birth justice cooperative Birthmark Doula Collective, grounded in conversations with four local cultural cooperative organizers, and with editorial and visioning support by Cooperation New Orleans founding member Susan Sakash.
We see arts and culture organizing as an effective strategy to help us build a robust cooperative ecosystem to build community wealth and meet our community’s needs. Below we share some of the stories from our network that illustrate how community members, through a range of distinct culturally focused cooperative businesses, are converting this vision into reality.