Local Peace Economy Project
Inspiring stories of people’s efforts to reshape and reinvest in our local economy.
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Rupa Marya, a physician and musician, studies how social structures impact health. She says colonial capitalism fractures the critical relationships that keep us healthy.
Promotoras Activas SF provides crucial social services for households in need.
The #LetUsBreathe Collective offers a hub for art, activism, and healing to those impacted by mass incarceration.
San Francisco’s third poet laureate, devorah major, speaks on Palestine and how poetry can help us connect as we navigate the violence of our world.
This consortium of community-based organizations is working toward decolonization and economic democracy.
Architects and everyday people are teaching each other to build spaces for community and climate resilience using local, natural materials.
“We have power. They’re afraid of us,” says politician-turned-talk-radio-personality “Arnie” Arnesen.
This one-year program provides transitional employment, job training, and housing resources for people experiencing homelessness.
Meet a theater group that left the city to reimagine a local economy.
This “relational facilitator” training team explores the intersection of spirituality and justice work.
A mother and daughter in and out of homelessness founded a grassroots magazine in 1996, by and for people experiencing poverty. It grew into a media, education, and art advocacy project for people in poverty around the world.
When the way things are isn’t working, we can build something better if we draw from our collective power and focus on care and interconnection.
Community support throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and uprisings against racial injustice around the world prove the necessity of mutual aid for survival during times of crisis, and beyond.
Amid Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip in 2023 and mass civilian deaths, well-known writers, artists, healers, and activists shared "Practices for Care and Endurance" to support efforts for ceasefire and freedom.
Many people are already investing themselves in the local peace economy as they divest from the economy of war.
From the Black Panthers to Shepard Fairey, artists have been behind some of the biggest acts of political resistance in the U.S. The anonymous artist collective behind the naked Trump statues that appeared around the U.S. in 2020 released a documentary about protest art during the 2020 election season.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s AORTA helps organizations restructure for greater equity.
Yoga teachers who work with oppressed communities say the practice is a key way to navigate stress, trauma, and disruption.
Wiki sites are at the forefront of a shift toward decentralized information sharing.
Artists have always been on the front lines of protest and social shift, taking the pulse of culture and society.
A global movement is building for a just, sustainable economy that prioritizes people and the planet over endless profit and growth.
Spawned in the wake of World War II, tool libraries lend implements and devices and provide practical guidance to community members who can’t afford to own or store their own tools.
Time banking is easing financial strain and promoting societal health.
Truly independent cinema is alive and well in North America. Here’s why it matters.
The free and shared goods economy is creating community resilience and alternatives to trash culture for millions of people.
A free and open community grief-tending event in Berkeley, California, set an example for coming to terms with loss—of people we love and of nature.
Due to decades of activism by a coalition of Indigenous groups, commercial fishers, concerned citizens and environmentalists, Oregon and California state governments committed to removing four dams along the Klamath River.
Ninety percent of all communes dissolve early on. How has this Missouri collective been making it work since 2005?
Efforts by governments and cities across the nation to defund the public library indicate a misunderstanding of the essential role that libraries play.
Law professor Mary Wood breaks down how people can protect their right to clean air, water, and land as well as fortify their climate change resiliency.
As governmental authoritarianism intensifies, citizens “double down on democracy” through the participatory model.
How Paicines Ranch in California works to bring business and investment up to date with our times and closer to nature—prioritizing ecosystem health, habitat, and the sequestration of carbon through soil practices.
How the custom steel fabrication and design company Crucible built a “gravel road” for other Montana worker co-ops to follow.
Many work to curb the global trash crisis by sharing goods with their neighbors.
A people-powered effort to move to fossil fuels to alternatives at the local level is building across the U.S. and the globe.
These book-sharing boxes promote literacy and strengthen communities.
This Petersburgh, New York, organization fights racial injustice in the food system.
The nonprofit Solar United Neighbors (SUN) is one group working to help communities move away from fossil fuels toward solar power.
Sankofa Village Arkansas is building an “intentional community centering Black healing, liberation, and regeneration.”
For growing numbers of media companies, employee ownership offers journalistic freedom and job stability.
Local radio stations and digital networks of independents are keeping “human-driven, anti-algorithm expression” alive.
An artist group’s “Remember the Future” podcast shines a light on the solidarity economy.
Grief spaces and community listening circles in Ashland, Oregon, model ways for communities to navigate these trying times—from fires to COVID-19 to racist police killings.
Public affairs podcasts are an antidote to short-form news consumption and soundbite-oriented cable news broadcasts.
Removing the taboo around talking about money, two collectives are helping people work toward securing their financial well-being.
A platform of California Climate and Agriculture Network would move billions of dollars into the hands of farmers and ranchers willing to adopt regenerative food and farming systems.
These scholars are fighting the rampant exploitation and high article processing charges in traditional academic publishing.
The North Missoula Community Development Corporation brings permanent affordable housing to Montana.
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the shortcomings of our mega-food industries and the necessity to localize food production.
Making the best use of a building to support a thriving community network.
Institutions like New York City’s Museum of Food and Drink are making food literacy fun.
Nature schools are taking education outside the box.
An interview with the creator of the short film “Ode to Joy,” which celebrates connection with nature as a portal to deeper connection with self and each other.
Bike co-ops uphold a tradition of self-empowerment through cycling.
The Boston Ujima Project’s assembly All About Love: Community Care Systems asks: What would it take to love and care for the most marginalized people in the city?
This all-ages education center reminds us that “we are a part of this earth, not apart from it.”
These online resources hold crucial information on history, social issues, and activism.
A look at successful programs that already exist as alternatives to police, and which policy changes and actions might restructure the U.S.’s policing and justice systems.
Latino community members in Southern California use the tanda system for mutual financial support.
This guide explores the concept, models, and examples of the peace economy: the giving, sharing, thriving, caring economy without which none of us would be alive. A peace economy is the sharing of resources, a culture of care, and the remembrance that there is enough abundance for all of us on this planet. It is the return to a culture that understands true value and wealth come from nurturing life, love, and joy. We call it a "local" peace economy because it operates at the local level, beginning in the commons. This guide also offers ways to divest from the war economy that is destroying life and well-being on this planet.
This guide will take you through examples of the regenerative, moneyless economy that is sometimes called “collaborative consumption.” The moneyless, sharing-based economy creates the opportunity to opt out of the mentality of disposability and the idea that “more is better,” both of which many of us are bombarded with from birth. The regenerative, moneyless economy provides an avenue for anyone to move away from the hoarding nightmare that has led to over-full garages and seldom-visited storage sheds, continent-sized trash islands, and enormous heaps of human waste. It does this by way of peer-to-peer systems set up for people to rent or borrow goods rather than buy and own them individually. It involves collaborative systems that supply people with the things they need, when they need them.
Associated Authors
Aric Sleeper is an independent journalist whose work covers topics including labor, housing, food, and more.
April M. Short is a co-founder of the Observatory, where she is the Local Peace Economy editor. She is also a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.
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