Solidarity Economy from the Margins: A Qualitative Study of a Women’s Cooperative in Southern Chile from a Feminist Political Economy Perspective

This article presents a qualitative study drawing on ethnographic methods of Cooperativa de Mujeres Llayin, an Indigenous women-led cooperative in southern Chile. Situated in a Mapuche-Huilliche community, the cooperative illustrates how solidarity economy practices emerge as collective responses to structural exclusions tied to gender, race, and territory. Addressing a gap in the still largely Eurocentric Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) research, this study integrates Feminist Political Economy (FPE) and the Sustainability of Life Approach (SLA) to explore alternatives to productivist analyses. Fieldwork was conducted between February and April 2024 and included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and a participatory workshop. Findings show that the cooperative enables a flexible organisation of work adapted to local logics of reciprocity centred on cultural affirmation and collective care, embodying solidarity-based economic practices oriented towards sustaining life rather than bureaucratic or accumulation imperatives. These practices are rooted in the Indigenous community and predate the cooperative’s legal constitution. This creates tensions with a public policy that seeks to promote a transition towards greater market integration through formalisation, but shows shortcomings such as limited coordination with the local administrative level, as well as a design inspired by exogenous models that do not necessarily reflect the realities of the territory and the solidarity economy practices that develop within it. From an FPE perspective, the findings further show that, while cooperative work provides flexibility to reconcile productive and reproductive responsibilities, the model itself does not overcome gender biases, and its effects on women’s economic autonomy remain limited.