Maternal Gift Economy: Breaking Through –
Ongoing Salons
Salon #05 – January 30, 2021
Genevieve Vaughan and Chiquie Estrada
Genevieve Vaughan Presentation title: Fundamentals of the Maternal Gift Economy in Early Childhood The basic human ‘operating system’ is laid down by the maternal gift economy that motherers have to practice towards young children, who cannot give them an equivalent in return. The unilateral altercentric giving and receiving interaction sculpts the neuron connections after birth and is the foundation of all human relationships. At around age, three children begin to learn an opposite ego oriented ‘operating system’ based on exchange, quid pro quo, that contradicts and exploits the gift mode and is prevalent in a patriarchal capitalist society. By recognizing that the maternal gift paradigm still exists as we become adults and is the main source of our positive interactions and interpretations of the world as well as of specifically human capacities like language, we can step back from the economy, the mindset and the behaviors that are presently devastating Mother Earth and all her children. Genevieve Vaughan (b.1939) is an independent researcher who lives part time in Italy and part in Texas. She created the multicultural all-woman activist Foundation for a Compassionate Society (1987-2005) and the Temple of Sekhmet in the Nevada desert (1992 – ongoing) and she co-created the network: International Feminists for a Gift Economy (2001 – ongoing). Her books are For-Giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange (1997), Homo Donans (2006) and The Gift in the Heart of Language: the Maternal Source of Meaning (2015). She has edited Il Dono/The Gift (2004), Women and the Gift Economy (2007) and The Maternal Roots of the Gift Economy (2019). A volume of the Canadian Women’s Studies Journal dedicated to the maternal gift economy has just appeared (2020).
More information @ www.gift-economy.com.
Chiquie Estrada Presentation title: Maternal Gift Economy in Pre-school Education In 2002, in agreement with Genevieve Vaughan, I started the first Montessori School, La Casa dei Bambini, in the town of Kyle, Texas. The Montessori method of education is highly recognized worldwide for early childhood education, but often not affordable for the common people. The Montessori approach and the Gift Economy have common principles. They facilitate giving the children experiences based in the maternal gift paradigm, instead of following the patriarchal practices that society has established. In this talk I am going to share with you my experiences in how this approach, at a formative age, can mold the children’s minds and hearts, helping them to integrate maternal behavior patterns within themselves. This allows the children to grow to enjoy and participate in a respectful, peaceful and giving environment. When these children grow up, they will tend to understand and practice Gift Economy since they have been exposed to it positively at an early age in the social environment of the school. They will have the knowledge and capacity to change the world. Chiquie Estrada, owner of La Casa dei Bambini in Kyle, Texas. Supporting children to reach their full potential in a holistic way is my passion; guiding children’s self development by linking them to the activities in a prepared classroom and outdoor environment is my calling. I was born in Guatemala and moved to the USA in 1976 where I began my journey with Montessori as a teacher’s assistant in 1977. After training as a guide in 1978 with the Association Montessori International in Atlanta, Georgia, I worked at several Montessori schools in Austin, Texas. It was there that met my good friend Genevieve Vaughan in 1986 and became acquainted with the Gift Economy. In 2002, because of Genevieve, I was able to open La Casa dei Bambini; which combines the philosophy and practice of Montessori with the Gift Economy.
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Maternal Gift Economy: Breaking Through Contact us: maternalgifteconomy@gmail.com Maternal Gift Economy For more information about the Maternal Gift Economy visit www.Gift-Economy.com ©2020 Maternal Gift Economy Movement. All Rights Reserved.
Salon #04 – January 16, 2021
Heide Goettner-Abendroth and Barbara Mann
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Salon #03 – January 2, 2021
Sherri Mitchell and Jodie Evans
Sherri Mitchell – Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset Presentation title: N’Dilnabamuk: Building a Relational Economy Sherri Mitchell – Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset was born and raised on the Penobscot Indian reservation. She received her Juris Doctorate and a certificate in Indigenous People’s Law and Policy from the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. Sherri is an alumna of the American Indian Ambassador program, and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship program. Sherri also received the Mahoney Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award, for research into Human Rights violations against Indigenous Peoples. She was a longtime advisor to the American Indian Institute’s Healing the Future Program and currently serves as an advisor to the Indigenous Elders and Medicine People’s Council of North and South America. She is the Founding Director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization dedicated to the global protection of Indigenous rights and the preservation of the Indigenous way of life. Prior to forming the Land Peace Foundation, Sherri served as a law clerk to the Solicitor of the United States Department of Interior; as an Associate with Fredericks, Peebles and Morgan Law Firm; a civil rights educator for the Maine Attorney General’s Office, and; as the Staff Attorney for the Native American Unit of Pine Tree Legal. Sherri is the author of the award-winning book Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change. More information @ sacredinstructions.life.
Jodie Evans Presentation title: Making Home: Cultivating a Local Peace Economy Jodie Evans is a life-long peace and social justice activist and co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She was in Jerry Brown’s cabinet when he served as Governor of California in the 1970’s, ran his Senate campaign in 1982, and his revolutionary 1992 campaign for President. She has led citizen diplomacy delegations to Iran, the Gaza Strip, Yemen and Afghanistan and has published two books Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Terrorism and Twilight of Empire. She founded a campaign at CODEPINK: Cultivating a Local Peace economy to address the need to change culture from a war economy culture to a peace economy culture if we want to achieve peace and justice. To a giving, sharing, caring, thriving relational economy from an extractive, destructive and oppressive economy.
Salon #02 – December 19, 2020
Angela Dolmetsch and Alessandra Piccoli with Giovanna Berber
Dr. Angela Dolmetsch Presentation title: The Gift Economy from Mother Nature to the Nashira Eco-Village Two thousand years ago there lived a community in what is today El Bolo San Isidro in Palmira, Colombia. This was a matriarchal community that worshipped Mother Earth and their goddesses were women breast feeding and giving birth as can be seen from the clay and gold figures found recently in newly uncovered graves. These figures of women as mothers, shown giving birth and breastfeeding, symbolized gifts received from Mother Nature, and were objects of worship, together with the sun and the moon. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the plants and other food that Mother Nature offers us are all gifts from her and are priceless. European Colonialism, accompanied by religious catechization, expelled violently this relationship with Mother Earth as Vandana Shiva rightly put it. Colonialism established a price for captured men as slaves and for the bodies of women as sex objects for the use of patriarchal invaders. They devalued motherhood, and established patriarchal paradigms that still dominate and subvert the indigenous communities that strive to preserve their ancestral traditions. The Nashira eco-village, where mothers rule is a modern effort to revive ancestral indigenous customs, based on the tradition of a matriarchal gift economy. Giving back control of the land so as to allow mother nature to give her gifts, by respecting the environment, growing fruits and vegetables and in contrast to an often exploitative exchange economy, neighbours give and receive gifts according to their needs and those of their children. In its 18 years of existence, the Nashira eco-village has changed paradigms. Women are respected and unwanted adolescent pregnancies are no longer the norm. Mothers do not need to essentially sell or cede their daughters to richer neighbours for money, and violence against women has been largely eliminated. The sharing of resources through a practical application of the gift economy has helped to make extreme poverty a thing of the past at a time when the Covid 19 pandemic has exposed the frailties of today’s social structures. Angela Dolmetsch was born in Cali Colombia, she has a Law degree from La Universidad San Buenaventura and a Ph.D. from London University. Her thesis was on Maternalism in Colombian Politics. She met Genevieve Vaughan in 2001 at the Wise Women’s Workshops in Loten Norway and since then she has tried to put into practice the Maternal Gift Economy. The Eco-village Nashira, is a practical example of the Gift Economy where 80 mothers victims of the Colombian conflict received land to build with government subsidies 80 houses at no cost becoming the seeds for a community of peace. She is the director of a weekly TV program el Agora, and writes a column in the Cali news paper “El Pais. She has published several books. “La otra Cara del Dólar” (1985), “Of Governments and Guerrillas” (1988) “El Hombrecillo que se tragó a Dios y otros relatos (1999). She also has articles in several publications. The following books are forthcoming: “las Madres en la Politica Colombiana ” “Nashira un Canto de Amor“.
Alessandra Piccoli
Creta project has been an experience of living maternal gift economy and construction of an elective matri-clan rferring to Studies on Contemporary Matriarchies of Heide Goetner Abendroth and to Genevieve Vaughan´s Gift Economy. A circle of women and men has worked together to establish an egalitarian society in our here and now. Alessandra Piccoli has a master degree in archaeology and a second one in management of social and solidarity economy, PhD candidate in social pedagogy plus a ten years and more experience in project management. “I am an activist, eco-feminist and transformative scholar. My research interest are: social and solidarity economy, food sovereignty, ecofeminism, eco-social transformation. I live in Trentino – Italy and I am mother of two.
Salon #01 – December 5, 2020
Vicki Noble and Letecia Layson
Vicki Noble Presentation title: In Praise of Genevieve Vaughan & the Maternal Gift Economy Genevieve Vaughan has been a major influence in my life. Her philosophical concept and implementation of the Maternal Gift Economy has the most far-reaching ramifications, linking to physical anthropology and leading to a deeper understanding of human evolution. Her articulation of the significance of the original mother-infant unit and the consequences of their particular communication process is original and profound. The gift of nurture and the gift of language go back to the beginnings of our human evolution; the Maternal Gift Economy (which already actively exists in the background) offers the single most cogent alternative to the current planetary crisis of global patriarchal capitalism. Using the pioneering work of feminist anthropologist Nancy Makepeace Tanner as well as that of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas and her exposition of Old European Goddess civilizations, I will show why restoring mothering and being mothered, as Gen puts it, must once again be brought into the foreground of our discussions and given centrality in all the current thinking about how to survive this urgent planetary crisis. Vicki Noble is a feminist writer, teacher, and independent scholar, co-creator of the round feminist Motherpeace Tarot Cards and author of Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess; Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World, and The Double Goddess: Women Sharing Power. Her books are published in numerous languages and for decades she has traveled and taught internationally with a focus on women’s history and Goddess spirituality. She has been active in the international Matriarchal Studies and Maternal Gift Economy movements. At home in Santa Cruz, California, she is a professional astrologer, as well as facilitating private intensive tutorials and Motherpeace certification courses. More information @ www.vickinoble.com
Letecia Layson Presentation title: Kapwa and the Gift Economy Letecia Layson is a Filipina, Feminist, Futurist, Priestess of Morphogenesis (Form Coming Into Being), High Priestess of Diana; Priestess Hierophant in FOI/TOI-LA. Letecia is one of the founding Mothers of the Center for Babaylan Studies; a member of International Feminists for Gift Economy, Modern Matriarchal Studies Network