Othering is financed by economic exclusionary systems. This type of othering diminishes everyone’s opportunity to thrive, and for some, it threatens their health and lifespans. The economy can do better and can finance inclusive political power and the financial stability of people and the places where they live.
The Just Public Finance program understands that inclusion and equity require transformed economic structures and institutional practices. We place othering and economy as an entangled and fundamental force for othering. The economy does not operate independently of othering, and we cannot talk about the economy without talking about othering. This is the insight that animates our work and directs our inquiry.
Just Public Finance produces research, analysis, policy, and a vision. The program contributes to transformative change in these ways:
- Building and supporting thoughtful intervention strategies to generate progressively fairer practices and systems of public finance
- Supporting local efforts and issue campaigns to provide immediate relief through transactional changes to ameliorate the day-to-day and long-term harms associated with austerity and public finance crises
- Identifying the structural flaws in public finance that perpetuate financial instability
- Identifying the current functions of credit, debt, and reimagining systems of financial opportunity and power
- Identifying how financialization affects opportunity structures, including higher education and public finance
- Promoting popular understanding of financialization and its influence
We currently work in three complementary projects:
