Taking as its background the rise of transnational activism, the World Social Forum, the Arab Spring, Occupy and the Climate Justice Movement, The Solidarity Economy Alternative: emerging theory and practice sets out to clarify meanings of the solidarity economy, emphasise the crucial theoretical concepts at work in the emergent solidarity economy around the world, and to highlight situated movement-building experiences.

All those concerned with democracy, transformative politics and/or emancipatory utopian alternatives will be interested to hear this discussion!

Dr Vishwas Satgar is Executive Director of the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC) in Johannesburg, and a senior lecturer in international relations at the University of the Witwaterstand. Dr Hilary Wainwright is a TNI fellow and a leading researcher and writer on democratisation, with a particular emphasis on the role of labour in envisaging and reforming public institutions. She is also the driving force and editor behind Red Pepper, a popular British new left magazine. The Solidarity Economy Alternative: emerging theory and practice has just been published by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Copies will be available for sale at the seminar. Michelle Williams is Professor at the University of Kassel, Germany and Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.