Dario Azzellini

Dario Azzellini holds a PhD in political science. He is lecturer for Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria), writer and documentary director. He served as Associate Editor for the The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), serves as active Associate Editor for WorkingUSA, for Cuadernos de Marte and the website workerscontrol.net. He has published several books, essays, and documentaries about social movements, privatization of military services, migration, workers control and Latin America. His latest film is Comuna under construction (2010) about local self-government in Venezuela, and latest book, together with Immanuel Ness, Ours to Master and to Own (Haymarket, 2011) about workers control.

Adrian Smith

Adrian Smith is a researcher at SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research) at the University of Sussex, where he investigates the politics of innovation for sustainable development. He currently leads two projects investigating grassroots innovation. Community Innovation in Sustainable Energy project is a collaboration with the Science, Society and Sustainability team at the University of East Anglia and is analysing the development and spread of community energy in the UK. The Grassroots Innovations in Comparative and Historical Perspective project is working with the Instituto de Estudios sobre la Ciencia y la Tecnología at the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes and the National Institute for Science Technology and Development in Delhi, and is studying the experience of grassroots innovation movements in India, Brazil and Argentina. The presentation in Liverpool draws upon work by colleagues in both projects.

John Barry

John Barry is Reader in School, of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast and Associate Director of the Institute for a Sustainable World. He is co-editor of two academic journals, Environmental Politics and Ecopolitics Online. His latest book, The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate Changed, Carbon Constrained World, will be published this year. John is interested in the relationship between moral/political theory and the environment, with particular focus on ecofeminism, and the implications of green theory for thinking about justice, and theories of political economy in relation to the environment.

Participatory Economy in Argentina

The following images are from Pete's research visits in Argentina. The first two illustrate the use of community currencies: the patacones, issued by regional authorities, and the trueque, the true community currencies issued by the people themselves.





The following two images show the participatory politics that developed after the Argentinazo, the opening up of Argentinian politics following the financial crisis of 2001. Popular assemblies like these planned street protests and the occupation of factories.





Meanwhile people's needs for subsistence were being met through the local markets where exchange took place using the community currencies.