A Constellation of Economic Possibilities: Latinx Food-Based Diverse Collaborative Economies as Catalysts for more Sustainable Economic Futures.

Diverse and alternative forms of economies have recently gained increased attention for their potential to transform conceptually and empirically the mainstream economic system. Around the world, scholars have documented the emergence and impact of economic practices that do not necessarily align with the principles and functioning mechanisms of the capitalist system. However, to this date, little is known about the contribution of migrant communities to diverse collaborative economic practices as they increasingly play a significant socio-economic role in the United States. This dissertation research relies on a postructuralist and postcolonial conceptualization of the economy as a diverse, contested, and situated realm to produce nuanced understandings of diverse economic practices developed by migrant communities in the US and to fill in the gaps of current understandings of diverse economies, ethnic economies, and ethnic foodscapes. This exploratory study relies on a relational comparative case study to investigate three dimensions of Latinx food-based collaborative practices (individual, collective, and contextual) in two urban contexts in the US – Boston (MA) and Charlotte (NC). By relying on a mixed-method approach in each context of study, this dissertation demonstrates the existence of multiple, diverse, and intertwined food-based collaborative networks assembled through the enactment of economic practices and informed by values of solidarity, interdependence, and cooperativism rooted in Latinx individuals’ non-static identity, cultural background, and past experiences. It also shows the heterolocal spatial form of food-based collaborative networks in the two contexts of study and the extension of their constitutive relational linkages across non-hierarchical scales. Finally, it demonstrates the mutually constitutive relationships between Latinx food-based diverse economic practices and the contexts in which they emerge, alongside the important transformative power these practices have for individuals, groups, and the context. Through this research I extend ontological economic value to diverse food-based collaborative economic practices and show how these Latinx communities are already diversifying the economy in highly capitalist contexts, such as the United States, and, more importantly, are already assembling the conditions to develop more sustainable economic scenarios.