Conference
Cultural encounters: suggestions concerning social-economical relations of Islamic financial culture and mutualist practices

Andrea Calori

February 21st, 2009, 10:00, Keynes Hall, School of Economics, University of Coimbra

Co-organized by the Doctoral Programmes "Democracy in the 21st Century", "Postcolonialisms and Global Citizenship" and "Governance, Knowledge, and Innovation"

Presentation

Driven by the strong diffusion that other economies (solidary economy, local economy, gift economy, etc.) have had during the last decade in Europe and around the world, the mutualist practices theme is turning into the core of several research courses in diverse contexts.
This is, by any means, a novelty: following a long period during which the thematics related to community, mutuality and relations were treated as marginal in relation to those mainly associated to the mainstream of development. In reality, the observation of the fundamental principles in which the Islamic finance/economy is based poses radically into discussion the reasons of this long-lasting modern marginalization.
Amongst the more evident signs of the necessity to reconsider the sense of value of mutualist practices we stress, for instance, the fact that among the large banks, that more then anyone are to blame for the global financial crisis, exist those who constructed their rules of governance upon some values directly deriving from the Islamic doctrine and some social relations associated to it.
In the course of the meeting, some similitudes between these values (and the techniques deriving from them) and the valorisation system that constitutes the base of solidary economies, proposing a discuss in what regards to the ability of the latter to constitute a signification basis to reconsider, be it theoretically, be it in practise, the marginality of these practices and some of its potentialities.

Biographic Notes
Andrea Calori is Professor of Spatial Planning and local Development at Polytechnic of Milan and has come to work, since the early 90’s on local development and self-sustainable policies. In this field he has developed in Italy and abroad skills in citizen participation and institutional negotiations and development of policies characterized by approaches guided by principles of solidarity economics principles. In this thematic he has worked as much in the field as in theoretical and methodological researches with social and economic actors and networks as well as several institutions at  different levels (local authorities, regions national governments, OECD, European Commission, Council of Europe, FAO, etc.).