Zoom link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81790051226?pwd=zQGDNzPBeTgCMQDH5ybM6fxGI9Prtb.1

Access code:

314966

Online Seminar with Dr Caroline Shenaz Hossein

Learning about Co-operativism: The Case of the Banker Ladies in the Americas

Thursday 12 November 2026

16:00-17:00 South Africa

9:00-10:00 Canada (Eastern)

Caroline Shenaz Hossein is Canada Research Chair of Africana Development & Feminist Political Economy and Full Professor of Global Development at the University of Toronto. She is member of the Royal Society of Canada’s New College. Hossein is the founder of the Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE) Collective, and her research navigates solidarity economies – a movement started in the Global South – which prioritizes social profitability over financial gain. Her new co-authored book With Cambridge UP is titled ‘Inventorying African Diaspora Economics’ (with S.D. Wright Austin and T. Esnard). Hossein is the author of the award-winning books ‘Politicized Microfinance’ (2016) and ‘The Banker Ladies’ by the University of Toronto Press (2024); as well as co-author of ‘Critical Introduction to Business and Society’ (2017); editor of ‘The Black Social Economy’ (2018), co-editor of ‘Community Economies in the Global South’ (2022) and ‘Beyond Racial Capitalism: Cooperatives in the African Diaspora’ (2023) both by Oxford University Press. Prior to becoming an academic, she worked for 16 years in a number of global organizations in economic development. Follow her work and The DISE Collective at www.Africanaeconomics.com

Seminar Abstract

Africana feminist co-operators engage in globalizing solidarity economies through a specific form of mutual aid – formally referred to as Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) – to meet livelihood needs. These women call themselves the Banker Ladies, and the ROSCAs they run are rooted in equity, collectivity and self-help. This lecture draws on empirical work that involves interviews with hundreds of Black women in five Caribbean countries, and in Canada’s big cities of Toronto and Montreal, as well as in Ghana and Ethiopia of her recently published book, The Banker Ladies. This research is calling on policy-makers in the region to recognize the value of Susu systems and for formal co-operators to correct the citational blindness of these informal co-op institutions. By valuing informal institutions, as well as acknowledging and remunerating the work of the Banker Ladies is a move towards humanizing business in society.

For those interested in learning more about this project, The Bankers Ladies is open access and can be read here: https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487557034. The Diverse Solidarity Economies Collective (DISE) also produced a short film based on this research. The film can be viewed online here: https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-banker-ladies/.