Our collective working group is concerned with the Problem of needing a community economies movement that is united across the state through the UC system.

We know countless students, staff, faculty, and institutes across the UC System are already working to challenge and reorganize systems of power in California. The CEC is an interdisciplinary network of graduate students representing seven UC campuses that not only looks to add to the conversation, but brings people together to discuss, organize, and concretize a community-focused vision for the future of California. Overall the CEC enriches the UC through developing : (1) relationships (2) events, and (3) digital educational materials to explore key themes that we see as focal points for disassembling racial capitalism and fostering a radically re-imagined political economic systems across California.  

We started the CEC with the ideas of having conversations and thinking of solutions towards a solidarity economy. Our work engages with and utilizes humanities-based research topics to further develop critiques around economics, value, labor, anthropocene and the human condition, among others. Our interdisciplinary nature means we focus on humanistic inquiries and engage with those literatures and conversations. We emphasize not just the need for mutual aid, solidarity and alternative economic systems to capitalism, but the need to build with others and bring together those already working toward a sustainable, community-centered future. We're working to build on an existing network of students and institutions from across seven UC campuses from interdisciplinary fields by hosting strategy meetings and conferences for dialogue and collaborating on popular education tools. The popular education tools are open for contributions from more members interested in the overall goals.