As a culmination of my research experiences, I developed and taught a course on Alternative Economic Visions to explore global models for social and ecological wellbeing.
location
Chapel Hill, NC
DATEs
Spring 2024
organization(s)
UNC Honors Carolina
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Alternative Economic Visions was born out of a desire to challenge mainstream economics courses which accept GDP growth as the main indicator of success. This dominant narrative continues to guide Western policies at the cost of human and societal well-being while fueling global capitalism, the over-exploitation of resources, and intersecting social, environmental, and economic crises.
This course aims to question the status quo about “success” and how this concept is valued. Exploring different cultural narratives, we will examine how models such as Doughnut Economics in Amsterdam, community currencies in Costa Rica, and rights of nature laws in Ecuador may contribute to greater social and ecological well-being and engage the following questions:
What does success look like in modern society and where do these ideas originate from?
How do our dominant conceptions of economic progress contribute to the global climate crisis?
What can we learn from existing frameworks that challenge our modern Western model of development?
Teaching Doughnut Economics
As part of this project, I also created a teaching guide as a resource for other educators to adapt and replicate the course. This guide includes slides from the class, links to relevant resources, and additional information and observations to supplement the course. I hope this can serve as a useful tool to share existing models while highlighting the possibility of imagining alternatives.