EP 22 Caroline Shenaz Hossein: Credit & Community; The Banker Ladies' Way
When Vinny discovered Caroline Shenaz Hossein's The Banker Ladies in audiobook format, he had found something rare: rigorous scholarship on Black cooperative economics that's accessible beyond the academy. Caroline is a Canada Research Chair in Africana Development & Feminist Political Economy and Full Professor of Global Development & Political Economy at the University of Toronto, founder of the Diverse Solidarity Economies Collective, and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada. For over fifteen years, she's researched ROSCAs, rotating savings and credit associations, informal banking systems used by over 200 million people globally. In the Caribbean and around the world, this type of mutual aid is celebrated. Yet in North America and Europe, these systems are criminalized, and their operators stigmatized. Their conversation explores what determines who's allowed to organize money, why established financial technologies are treated as innovations when commercial banks copy them, what citational justice means across sectors, and how making these systems visible transforms who we recognize as economic experts.
Guest Links
Guest Links
- Africana Economics / DISE Collective
- DISE Socials: LinkedIn, Instagram, Bluesky
- Caroline's Socials: LinkedIn, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok
Referenced in this episode
- The Banker Ladies film (Films for Action)
- The Banker Ladies book (University of Toronto Press)
- ROSCA Network Canada
- Community Economies Research Network
- Collective Courage, book by Jessica Gordon Nembhard
Creators and Guests
Host
Vinny Tafuro
Vinny is a visionary, futurist, writer, entrepreneur, communications theorist, and economist. A polymath and curious by nature, he is a pioneering advocate for the twenty-first-century economy that is disrupting society’s rigid institutions and beliefs. Vinny’s economic and foresight projects explore the societal and economic shifts being catalyzed by human culture as a result of technology, corporate personhood, and evolving human cognition. An engaging and energetic speaker, Vinny presents on a variety of topics both professionally and through community outreach. He enjoys an active and blended professional, academic, and personal life, selecting challenging projects that offer opportunities for personal and professional growth. He is the author of Corporate Empathy and Unlocking the Labor Cage.
Guest
Caroline Shenaz Hossein
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
