Troubling Power: An Introduction to a Special Issue on Power in Community Economies

Abstract

In this introduction, we briefly frame the impetus behind this special issue focused on theorizations of power in diverse- and community-economies research. Catalyzed by a panel session at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, this collection of essays reflects broader, ongoing discussions about how to grapple analytically and practically with power—in all of its forms—as a feature of economic formations. We outline here how each of the contributors to this issue, unsatisfied with a division of labor between theorists concerned with power’s constraining force and those focused on its enabling or generative force, offers new paths for critique that neither reify existing power relations nor turn away from them.