Radical ecological economics: A paradigm from the global south

Radical Ecological Economics is a more appropriate way for collaboration with communities in the Global South. It transcends the conceptual and methodological premises of Ecological Economics, integrating realities that are not commonly considered, but exist and actively resist throughout the world. The text addresses three major areas: 1) the broadening of the understanding of the social, not only as “the human” but as the encounter of complex structures of organization, of biological and cultural reproduction, of identity reaffirmation and even the search for autonomy in the face of historical oppressions whose leadership is entrusted to a Revolutionary Communitarian Subject; 2) the understanding that, within this social complexity, there are realities that are not generally considered, in which the natural endowment and goods for consumption and enjoyment are not allocated by market mechanisms; where production is organized as part of the social fabric; in which surpluses take multiple material and non-material forms, and are distributed for the common good (human and non-human); and in which socioecological metabolic configurations are nourished by historical cosmovisions that respect the biophysical limits of ecosystems; 3) REE has clear ontological, epistemological, methodological, and political foundations, taking into account a diversity of realities. This formulation offers a comprehensive method to understand the multiple worlds and approaches of millenarian societies that now are forging worlds outside the capitalist model by communities committed to alleviating the multi-scale crisis that afflicts them.