The Diversity We Are Given: Community Economies and the Promise of Bataille

Abstract

For over 20 years J K Gibson-Graham and the Community Economies Collective have endeavoured to reveal the diversity of economic practice already operative in our so-called capitalist world. The aim of this paper is to further this ambition by illuminating an occlusion in Gibson-Graham's own political vision. It argues that diversity, in Gibson-Graham's thought, is primarily conceptualised as something produced. Drawing upon the work of George Bataille, this paper conceptualises the economy as a superlative and prodigal system of energy exchange that, by definition, is over-productive and wasteful. In this framing, diversity is not the result of positive relations but emerges from the prolific nature of the general economy. The idea is developed through a discussion of the Detroit urban farming movement. Specifically it argues that the inefficient, redundant and wasteful nature of urban farming is an appropriation of potentialities resident within the general economy.