Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence
We look to medicine.
Medicine explores how the African oral history tradition can help us communicate the relationships, tools, and skills vital to historic and contemporary movements for Black economic self-determination. It also aims to aid us with a language we can use to share and retain this vital knowledge.
Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence is a collaborative project between Kinfolk Network and Decolonising Economics curated by Nonhlanhla Makuyana exploring the past, present, and future of African and Afro-diasporic economies.
From August 2025 to March 2026, this project was incubated at Decolonising Economics, and in April 2026 it was established as its own entity.
Between August 2024 and May 2025, we ran a political education programme across the UK with the aim of empowering Black activists and community organisers with the ancestral technologies, tools and knowledge to move towards nourishing economic realities.
In parallel, we ran a 6-month explorative programme called Experiments in Marronage codesigned with Zahra, where 10 African-descendant organisers came together to imagine freedom beyond the systems designed to extract from us.
Grown from a shared belief that the wisdom needed to navigate this moment already lives within our communities, Decolonising Economics and Kinfolk Network created this project to amplify the ancestral knowledge that guides us towards regenerative, restorative economies grounded in justice.
In September 2024, we held our first event as part of our “Medicine: Lessons in Black Economic Interdependence” series.
Using the African oral history tradition, this event facilitated intergenerational dialogue on stories of Afro-diasporic migration to the UK. Our speakers shared their personal migration stories with us, and while both experiences took place at different times, they were connected by the principles of the Self Help Movement of the late 1960s and early 70s in the UK.
We heard from Dee Woods, an award-winning food system leader, and Last Mafuba, a social scientist and social justice leader.
In October 2024, we partnered with Coffee Afrik women’s coop to share stories of saving circles, collectivity and building economic self-determined futures.
This was an intergenerational conversation, with younger organisers asking aunties about how to use savings circles. We discussed:
- What savings circles are, how they work and how they connect to migration stories.
- How savings circles are being used by African women across the diaspora and on the continent.
- How we can learn from aunties on using savings circles for our movements for Black economic self determination
In February 2025 we met to discover the story of Zenzele House – Bristol’s first self-build housing project – and United Housing Association, the city’s first Black-led housing association, both founded in 1985.
Partnering with Afrikan Connexions Consortium we heard from Community-Led Housing experts for practical strategies to pursue community-driven housing solutions, building a future rooted in Black liberation and self-repair.
We were guided in this conversation by elders Cindy, Claude, Juliet , and Madu, who had over 30 years of experience in Black-led community housing.
In March 2025, we explored Afrikan economic interdependence beyond the UK with three international speakers:
- Yannia Sofia Garzón Valencia, Colombia: a community weaver with extensive experience of political formation processes and liberatory economic practices.
- Elizabeth Mpofu, Zimbabwe: a renowned farmer, activist and leader in the fight for food sovereignty, and she works to amplify the voices of women and indigenous communities.
- Naki Cristancho Segura, Colombia (based in California): the co-founder of Posa Suto, a spiritual, Afrocentric anti-racist space for Black queer, trans, and diverse people.
Through this discussion facilitated by Nourishing Economics’ members Tanita and Zahra, we explored the collective care and economic autonomy of African and Afro-descendant communities.
In May 2025, we co-curated an event in Glasgow with Mahasin and Martha to explore connections between themes of healing and intergenerational connection that exist within Black communities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the surrounding areas.
This included making visible the strategies, relationships, and values that have sustained movements, supported wellbeing, and driven community action.
We were led in this conversation by Asma from Empower Women for Change, Harriete from African and Caribbean Elders and Salma Faraji, an embodiment practitioner across the themes of mutual aid, intergenerational wisdom and embodied healing.
In February 2026, we gathered for an afternoon of Maroon herbalism, therapy with the harp, rest, and collective dreaming with Black organisers and activists.
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Over the course of 6 months, 10 African-descendant organisers came together to build, experiment, and imagine freedom beyond the systems designed to extract from us.
In October 2025, we gathered in person at a retreat where we moved from idea to practice in our respective experiments facilitated by Alanna and Katherine from Rivers Coaching.
The retreat was guided by a framework designed by Nonhlanhla and Zahra from research on African heritage economic thought.
CAPITALISM AS A
DEATH-MAKING MACHINE
Understanding capitalism as a system that produces and normalises death for African Descendant peoples — of ecosystems, communities, and futures.
HOPE
(COSMIC FREEDOM)
Recognising and reclaiming abundance in places we've been taught to see only scarcity.
ANCESTRAL TECHNOLOGIES
OF SURVIVAL
A commitment to experimentation rooted in the inherited wisdom, strategies, and technologies of those who came before us.
This framework guided our participants to experiment and imagine. Over the course of the retreat, we:
- Built altars to recognise and honour our ancestors
- Reconnected with traditional ways of navigating through soundbathing and stargazing
- Engaged in guided discussions about Black economic self-determination tools
The collective power of Black communities to shape, own, and govern their economic lives. An intentional practice of moving from being participants in an economy to being its architects.
The voluntary, reciprocal exchange of resources and services within a community to ensure everyone’s needs are met. Mutual aid is a horizontal practice, rather than the top-down approach that charities use. It is rooted in the belief that “we keep us safe”
Informal financial systems within a community where a group of people contribute money to a central fund at regular intervals, with each member taking a "draw" in turn. An ancestral form of trust-based banking and a tool of collective capital.
In spring 2027, we will launch Medicine’s Oral Histories Archive.
This will be a living repository of migration, memory, and the ancestral tools of liberation that our communities have used to thrive against the odds.
Until then, stay connected to the project via Instagram
who was involved in the project
- Nonhlanhla Makuyana (Curator)
- Zahra Dalilah (Curator)
- Natasha Ruwona (Producer )
- Jacob V Joyce (Illustrator)
- Kayode Gomez (Sound Designer)
- Roshni Goyate and Kavya Chauhan (Comms producers)
- Natalya (content producer)