Toward People’s Budgets: Public Economic Geography for Movement Building

Abstract

In this article, we respond to Narayan and Rosenman’s call for a more public economic geography by considering the ways in which economic geographers could contribute to social movements. We do this in two ways. First, we reflect on our initial encounters with economics in the fields of geography and urban planning to consider how our disciplinary groundings shape and perhaps limit our imaginaries of the economy. Second, we consider how activist calls for “people’s budgets” present an opportunity for researchers to develop a more public economic geography as part of movement building. We see this as one way in which economic geographers might help forge alternative, life-sustaining economies.