State of the art of research on solidarity economy focuses on the re-territorialization of economic activity, as well as the reproduction of the material resources, norms and rules necessary for the development of solidarity economy-based livelihoods. The field lacks a solid view of how solidarity economy initiatives are shaped by forms of collective action that re-signify, re-localize and regulate economic behavior while challenging the practices and institutional structures of market societies. The present collection analyzes how alternative economic spatialities result from the way initiatives, as well as networks, constitute themselves as forms of collective action and counterpower, therefore creating opportunities to generate social value through multi-stakeholder and multi-level institutional formations. It identifies drivers of strategic choice in terms of practices, organizational forms and economic and political linkages, both within and across different fields and scales of activity. Such drivers are rooted in epistemological understandings of: 1) the social and ecological crises, to which solidarity economy initiatives are a constructive response; 2) agency, namely that of individuals and communities, the state at its different levels of governance and of non-human subjects, specifically nature and technology; 3) the types of relationships, within and across different types of agents, that promote the goals of solidarity economy. Such drivers inform strategies of adaptive hybridization of practices, aimed at dealing with constraints posed by the institutional environment, as well as power relations that structure the different scales of political economy in which solidarity economy initiatives are embedded.

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Solidarity Economy,Community-led Initiatives,Prefigurative Politics,Sustainability Transitions,Alternative Public Spaces