Schools and Retreats - ARCHIVE

SCHOOLS

As of June 2025, the Community Economies Institute has run four Summer/Winter Schools on the theme of Researching Postcapitalist Politics. The School runs simultaneously around the globe as a small group intensive, with a maximum of 10 participants in online nodes and 12 in face-to-face nodes.  The focus is community (and diverse) economies research and practice. 

• The first part focuses on foundational texts (such as The End of Capitalism (as we knew it), 1996), core concepts (such as antiessentialism, poststructuralism and performativity) and thinking techniques (such as reading for difference). 
• The second part focuses on contemporary applications of this foundational material.  

On Days 8 and 9 of the School there are online panels that bring participants from the various nodes together, and there are one-on-one research meetings when participants meet with members of the Community Economies Institute.  

***Read what participants say about the CEI Summer/Winter School***

Participants' connection with community economies thinking and practice continues beyond the school:

• Most join the Community Economies Research Network (CERN) and become active contributors to CERN groups. 
• School alumni organise sessions and participate in the annual CERN LIVIANA conference. 
• In 2025, a series of LIVIANA sessions, New Scholarship in Community Economies, feature school alumni presenting their PhD theses with responses from the Series Editors of the Diverse Economies and Livable Worlds book series, J.K. Gibson-Graham, Stephen Healy, Maliha Safri, and Kevin St. Martin (who are also facilitators and contributors to the school). 

2025 Summer/Winter School

The fourth multi-nodal Summer/Winter School was held in 10 to 19 June 2025. There were 36 participants, and four nodes (with eight to ten participants at each node):

1. Online in Asia-Pacific (Australian Eastern Standard Time), with participants from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and facilitated by Dr Jenny Cameron and Professor Katharine McKinnon
2. Online in Europe (Central European Daylight Time), with participants from Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, UK and Uzbekistan, and facilitated by Emeritus Professor Katherine Gibson and Dr Lucie Sovová
3. Face-to-Face in Trondheim, Norway (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), with participants from Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Ukraine and the US, and facilitated by Professor Elizabeth Barron and Professor Kevin St. Martin
4. Online in the Americas (US Central Daylight Time), with participants from across Canada and the US, and facilitated by Dr Luke Drake, Dr Leo Hwang and Molly Mullen.

Day 2, Asia-Pacific Online Node, 2025

2024 Summer/Winter School

The third multi-nodal Summer/Winter School was held in June 2024. There were 42 participants, and five nodes (with eight to ten participants at each node):

1. Aotearoa New Zealand (University of Auckland) (face-to-face)
2. Norway (NTNU, Trondheim) (face-to-face)
3. Online in the Americas (US Eastern Daylight Time) (with participants from across the Americas)
4. Online in Asia-Pacific (Australian Eastern Standard Time) (with participants from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, and Philippines)
5. Online in Europe (Central European Daylight Time) (with participants from across Europe and the UK). 

Read what participants from 2024 say about their experience (and there's more here). 

2024 Aotearoa New Zealand node, 'at work and at play.' Images courtesy of Ariela Zibiah.

2023 Summer/Winter School

In June 2023, the second multi-nodal Summer/Winter School Researching Postcapitalist Politics was held with 42 participants across five nodes: 

1. Aotearoa New Zealand (face-to-face)
2. Norway (face-to-face)
3. West Virginia, US (face-to-face)
4. Online in Central European Daylight Time (with participants from Europe, India and Thailand)
5. Online in New Zealand Standard Time (with participants from Australia, Chile, Mexico and US). 

Read what participants from 2023 say about their experience (and there's more here). 

2022 Summer/Winter School

In 2022, we held the first multi-nodal Summer/Winter School, with three face-to-face schools (in Aotearoa New Zealand, Italy and the US) and two online schools (in Australian and European time zones). The theme was Researching Postcapitalist Politics. 

Read what participants from 2022 say about their experience (and there's more here). 

To find out more about what happened there are recordings from the LIVIANA conference (in November 2022 and five months after the School) on:

• reflections on the 2022 Summer/Winter School by participants and facilitators
• revisiting ideas and concepts from the School by participants based in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
• blue economy presentations by participants from school
• a session on diverse economies of the state organised by three participants from the school
• a conversation on race based on a workshop from the school
• a session on diversifying the language of scale based on participant presentations given during the school
• two sessions on 'mushroom and mycelia' based on a workshop from the school (Session 1 and Session 2).

It's also worth reading the blog by one of the Australian online participants.

2020

The planned 2020 Summer School on the theme of Methods for a Postcapitalist Politics was cancelled because of COVID.

2019

In 2019, the Community Economies Institute held its first Summer School, Postcapitalist Politics in Practice, 1 to 6 June, in Bolsena (Italy).

Retreats

In 2023, the Community Economies Institute held its first Practice Retreat, Community Economies in Action, 12-19 July 2023, in the Italian Alps (in Rovereto, Vallagarina Valley, Italy).

Read the Zine produced at the Practice Retreat, or read the summary in the 2023-24 CEI Annual Report, pages 11 to 13.