Building Real Black Utopias: Solidarity Economics & Prefigurative Politics

Building Real Black Utopias: Solidarity Economics & Prefigurative Politics

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with leading scholar Stacey Sutton on "Building Real Black Utopias: Solidarity Economics & Prefigurative Politics." This event will explore the transformative possibilities of creating community-based economic models that challenge traditional capitalist structures and center Black liberation and collective well-being.

Stacey Sutton (she/they) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy, and the Director of Applied Research and Strategic Partnerships at UIC’s Social Justice Initiative. She recently launched the Solidarity Economy Research, Policy & Law Project to advance interdisciplinary research, policy, and community alliances to strengthen solidarity economy ecosystems.

Sutton's scholarship and teaching are in community economic development, with a central focus on racial and economic justice; economic democracy and worker-owned cooperatives; movement building and the solidarity economy; gentrification and dispossession; neighborhood small business dynamics; and disparate effects of punitive policy. Through Sutton’s new body of cooperative city research, Real Black Utopias, she examines the infrastructure and ideology of Black-led cooperatives and solidarity economy ecosystems in multiple cities.

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This event is hosted in partnership with the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and hosted by Nikishka Iyengar (she/her) '25 Loeb Fellow. Nikishka is the founder of The Guild, a solidarity economy enterprise in Atlanta building community-owned models of land, housing and real estate as a means to build self-determination for Black and other communities of color.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Gund Hall, 42-48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, United States