Grupo de Economía Ambiente y Alternativas al Desarrollo

The Group on Economics, Environment and Alternatives to Development (GEAAD) is a research group created in 2019 by Professor Alexander Rincón Ruiz. It was initially formed by master’s students from different fields, emerging as an interdisciplinary group of biologists, engineers, economists and sociologists, and it currently includes both faculty members and undergraduate students. The group was founded in the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the National University of Colombia, and over time it has sought to create spaces for analysis and for generating possibilities from approaches that engage with complexity, living systems, ecological economics, decoloniality, Latin American environmental thought, political ecology, and the worldviews of local peoples and communities. Our group conducts research on the relationships between economy and environment, aiming to foster a reflective and critical capacity in a multiscalar, dynamic, heterogeneous and conflictive context. We engage with new visions and alternatives to development, explore frontier discussions, and connect with the diversity of collectives, groups and individuals who are weaving new perspectives oriented toward the care of life. Our work is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, and it seeks to connect knowledge and ways of knowing for collective construction from diversity. Our central line of work began with topics related to the complex relationships between economy and environment, evolving into what is now one of our main research lines: diverse economies and other economies for life. This is the structural and cross-cutting line of GEAAD, where the fundamental axis of research is located. There is an inability to respond to the complex environmental crisis we face from disciplinary and hegemonic visions of economics, based on paradigms of growth, competitiveness, accumulation, and an idea of well-being centred on consumption, thus generating a simplification of the world that does not create conditions for life. For this reason, it is necessary to think in terms of diverse economies and other economies that prioritise the care of life, that are grounded in a relational and systemic vision with nature, that are based on care, collectivity and cooperation, and that conceive well-being beyond consumption. These elements are rooted in sustainability, resilience and environmental justice.