The Legacy of Mothers: Matriarchies and the Gift Economy as Post Capitalist Alternatives

Literary Nonfiction. Women's Studies. Jewish Studies. Native American Studies. The many powerful voices of the international contributors to this anthology argue that motherhood may be the foundation of alternative human logic, a new socio-political order, a new value system, and a way of liberating mothers themselves.

This book does not present a utopia but a possible road to an alternative evolvement of the world different from the common thinking in the Global North: in lieu of capitalism--the gift economy and the subsistence economy; in lieu of trans-humanism--nature and all her human and non-human inhabitants; in lieu of individualism--community; in lieu of domination--balance and responsibility; in lieu of State--localism; in lieu of monotheism--spirituality; in lieu of equality-feminism--transformative-feminism.

The signs of this development are already seen everywhere: in the New Age, in urban communes, in Occupy movement, in the mothers' movement. Based on critique of the failures of capitalism, the State, enlightenment, patriarchy, and even western feminism, the book's second part presents alternatives coming from outside the patriarchal framework. For example: the maternal gift economy as an economic model and human logic; matriarchal society--balanced, free and equal; gift giving and subsistence perspective instead of exchange and accumulation; motherism as a central concept in African legacy; goddesses as spiritual and cultural icons.

Such perception challenges the escape from the mother or mothering (to career, for example) that is so prevalent in the West. The possibilities to actualize this re-understanding of motherhood and mothering--including local communities, healing and peacemaking--are presented in the third part.