Banking on Community: The Caribbean's Alternative Economy with Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein

The Caribbean's financial revolution has been quietly unfolding for generations. We delve into the powerful world of rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) known throughout the region as Padna, Susu, Boxhand, and countless other names. Dr. Caroline Hossein joins us as we reveal how these grassroots financial systems challenge Western capitalism by prioritizing collective wellbeing over individual profit.
 
We trace these practices through the Middle Passage to contemporary Caribbean communities and their diasporas worldwide. Dr. Hossein shares fascinating insights from her research documenting these "banker ladies" who organize and manage these systems with remarkable financial acumen. These community banking practices aren't relics of the past but living demonstrations of alternative economic possibilities – showing how financial systems can be democratized and made to serve community needs. For anyone interested in economic justice, community building, or Caribbean cultural resilience, this episode offers profound insights into how ancient wisdom continues to create pathways to freedom and prosperity.

A multi-award-winning scholar, Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein is Canada Research Chair in Africana Development and Feminist Political Economy and Associate Professor of Global Development & Political Economy at the University of Toronto. Hossein is founder of the Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE) Collective, which involves a wide range of feminist scholars concerned with building a human economy. Hossein’s research navigates solidarity economies–a movement started in the Global South–which prioritizes social profitability over financial gain. She is the author of over 50 scholarly publications, including The Banker Ladies: Vanguards of Solidarity Economics and Community-Based Banks (2024) and produced a documentary of the same name, both about Black women’s participation in mutual aid. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Strictly Facts
• 1:38 Dr. Hossein's Caribbean Heritage
• 5:21 Understanding Roskas & Solidarity Economics
• 12:23 The Cultural Roots & Global Presence
• 22:17 Banking Challenges & Community Solutions
• 32:56 Technology's Impact on Traditional Practices
• 41:59 Cultural Representation & Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, hosted by me, alexandria Miller. Strictly Facts teaches the history, politics and activism of the Caribbean and connects these themes to contemporary music and popular culture. Hello, hello, good morning, good day, good night. Thank you so much for spending some time with us at Strictly Facts, a guide to Caribbean history and culture, what I hope is your favorite Caribbean history and culture podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:33

One aspect I've loved about the podcast and you know sharing Strictly Facts and my interest in Caribbean history with so many of you is the fact that Caribbean people have always protested and creatively circumvented barriers to their freedom.

Speaker 1: 0:48

In a lot of ways, right, and you know, in a lot of ways that's a result of the racial, gendered, social standings.

Speaker 1: 0:55

We'll get into a lot of those things today, but our discussion really is focusing on one of those really creative ways of circumventing these barriers, not just in terms of our social standings, but also to better our economic standings, through community practices, through unity, through finances especially. And so, if you have heard of Padna, of Susu, of Boxhand there are many names that you know and we'll get a little bit more into that as well in our conversation today, but that is precisely what we are discussing, and so, before we get too deep, I have the pleasure of being joined by Dr Caroline Shannaz-Hossein, canada Research Chair in Africana Development and Feminist Political Economy and Associate Professor of Global Development and Political Economy at the University of Toronto, scarborough, as well as the founder of Diverse Solidarity Economies Collective. Dr Hossein, thank you so much for joining us here at Strictly Facts today. Why don't you kick us off a little bit with telling us a bit about yourself, your connection to the Caribbean and what inspired your interest in political economy and development?

Speaker 2: 2:03

So I want to say thank you, alexandria, for having me on this podcast, where we focus and pay attention to innovations that are happening in the Caribbean region, but also in the diaspora. It's a real honor and pleasure for me to be here with you. So my name is Caroline Hossain. Most days, I'm so happy to be a part of a feminist economics collective called the Dice Collective, and that's what sustains me in terms of the research I'm doing, because we're always thinking about pluralizing our economic systems to ensure that we have more equality and justness within the ways in which we work in business and society.

Speaker 2: 2:49

My connection to the Caribbean is that I am part of that diaspora. I was born in New York City to Caribbean parents. My mom is of Grenadian and St Vincent background but grew up in Trinidad so the ultimate Caribbean woman and my father is Indo-Guyanese and he is also someone who is very proud of his culture and legacy, like you just mentioned earlier, and so I come from both African descendants and Indo descendants from the Caribbean. Some of your listeners might know what a Dougla is, so I see myself as a Dougla feminist and I'm very proud of that heritage.

Speaker 2: 3:36

I was born in New York City, raised by Caribbean immigrant parents who relocated late 60s to the US and then migrated on to Toronto, canada, where we have a very vibrant and lively Caribbean community. You mentioned you're from Jamaica, so lots and lots of Jamaicans here for decades in Toronto Canada, and so I've had this back and forth relationship with family spread across the Caribbean but also within the United States and Canada, so my Caribbean histories and traces are quite rich and diverse in terms of geography. So I was fortunate enough while I was a doctoral student to do my Fulbright in Jamaica at UEMONA, but I also traveled the region, particularly in Haiti, jamaica, guyana, trinidad and Grenada, and to really think through more formalized financial programs targeting the poor, the entrepreneurial poor, and that's really when I started getting interested in alternative economic systems and how they touch people within the Caribbean but also in the diaspora.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Just a brief shout out to my Scarborough family that I know is tuning in. So, as you said, we are a very big diaspora and so Caribbean people are all over the place.

Speaker 2: 5:02

I live in Scarborough.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Yes. So I was, like you know, got to give a good shout out. I know they're tuning in. All that being said, and you know, as you really are bringing us to this point of solidarity economies, as I briefly raised already, there are a lot of names that you know these sort of practices can be known by, and they differ a little bit across the region.

Speaker 1: 5:26

So you know, padna, as I mentioned, in Jamaica, susu or Susu in Trinidad, and the Bahamas Lodge in St Lucia, boxhand in Guyana, seoul in Haiti, and the list goes on and on. But from an academic perspective, in a way, they're sometimes referred to as rotating savings and credit associations and have, you know, really helped Caribbean people, even members of my own family, make tremendous strides, whether that be starting a business, you know, putting a down payment on a house, sending their kids to college, all of these things right, and they are, in a way, a sort of money pool I'm putting it very tersely in a sense, but sort of a money pool which allows, you know, members of your family or your community to get together as an alternative to maybe taking out a bank loan or something like that. So, you know, as our resident expert sharing with us today. Could you share with us a little bit more about this practice and how it even really works and why people use them really?

Speaker 2: 6:26

Yeah, I think, alexandria, you did a great job at sort of really pinning down the definition of what I call are very ancient cooperative economic systems that are global in their orientation. These kind of social innovations started in the global South, all over the world. You know, in India they have chit, in China they have hua. Across the Arab world it's gameyas. Mexico, latin America call them tandas. So of course, within the Caribbean region, that continues this rich African tradition of Susu and Itiga out of Kenya and Huggabud in Somalia. So there's so many rich, diverse economic cooperative institutions that are rooted in what we know as mutual aid groups, and these are mutual aid financial groups that are not unfamiliar to developed country contexts. But everywhere in the world people have a history of using these kinds of financial systems through some sort of group mechanism. And so, as you mentioned correctly, roskus is the official academic word, but most people in the Caribbean region will refer to them in their vernacular, as you said.

Speaker 2: 7:51

You know Jamaicans, for Jamaicans it's partner right or partner, or however which way they say it. You know you have meeting turn box, hand, susu. You know lodge, tontine, soul, I mean there's so many colloquial, localized love names that actually the women who organize them and call themselves the banker ladies have been really big proponents of call it what you like, because that's where it gives meaning, and so we've been really doing an inventory, if I can say, of these kinds of systems that have this shared global phenomenon of people sort of do-it-yourself finance and pooling economic goods together.

Speaker 1: 8:40

But really that financial transaction is only one piece of what Roskas bring to people who participate as members in these collective institutions different things, whether that's food, you know we have foods that would be called one thing in one island, it's the same food in another island, it's just by another name. And I think it even expands out beyond that because, as you mentioned, these practices are all over the world. But even really connecting some of the names to the continent and you know various countries in Africa have very similar names, or you know the same names to some of the islands in the region. And so, just a way to you know, bridge our communities even beyond the immediate Caribbean, but extend it outward For our listeners who may not be familiar. And I think, in a way, to an extent, as time has gone on, it's maybe become less current and maybe future generations are less aware of Padna or of these Raskas, as you mentioned.

Speaker 1: 9:52

But the way that it works for our listeners, if you're unaware, so there is a banker, a banker lady, if it's a woman or you know, but generally there's a banker who is, you know, in the same way we would think of banks as kind of like the holder of the money, right, and so you get your group together, everybody puts in their $100 or whatever the amount is, and you know there's a specific way in which you set your terms right. So it's, if it's every week or, you know, once a month, whatever that looks like, and then each person within the bank or this banking system rotates and gets their share of that collective pool. So if there are seven people within the structure you know, everybody puts in their $100, the pool is $700. And so every week if that's your term, that you said it, every week a different person within this pool gets the $700, for instance, said it, every week, a different person within this pool gets the $700, for instance.

Speaker 2: 10:51

And that's what's so beautiful about these systems, and I think you've really sort of underlined an essential practice, which is democracy building. These institutions are rooted in democracy and consensus building. Members voluntarily come together. It could be because these institutions are born out of crisis, which could be business or financial exclusion. It could be because of loneliness. I mean.

Speaker 2: 11:15

The reasons in terms of why people come together to create a Rosca, to create a SUSU, to create a POTNA, will vary. To create a susu, to create a partner, will vary, but what's key here is that members come together. They decide what that leadership will look like. So, as you mentioned, sometimes there is a chief banker. So the chief banker, lady right, who will spend a lot of time organizing and facilitating and mobilizing the membership to make contributions on cycles and durations that everyone agrees to. That's what's beautiful about Rosca they have a starting point and an ending point and every member has a vote or a voice in terms of what that institution will look like. So ROSCA's do vary in terms of cycle and duration, but they're primarily for people who are not familiar with them. They're primarily a savings mobilization, where people have a fixed sum of money that they will give in intervals to one another like a gift, and in turn, everyone will access a lump sum of money that was contributed to a larger pool, so that, instead of you saving tirelessly for a year to get that major purchase, you can actually do that much faster, particularly if you're earlier in the queue to access that lump sum of money.

Speaker 2: 12:47

Yeah, and so it's about this idea of camaraderie people supporting one another, people assisting each other, not just through financial transactions alone, because the social dimension is huge, like people make sure that they're meeting up to give courage, to continue with your life and dream projects, but also to think through how do you repair harms that have happened to you in society. So it's a real conversation. It's a real foodie paradise, really. People get together and do a great cook-up and they have great conversation, do a lot of healing, but they're also dreaming while they're coming together. So, yeah, rosca's systems the mechanisms in how people organize these institutions is really done collectively by members, and so I like to liken these institutions to what people already know cooperatives and credit unions, and many of those institutions which are membership-based started off informally, because they were often born because of some major crisis or tragedy that they felt that commercial, individualized institutions were not addressing, and so Roskas belong to that kind of business legacy of membership-based institutions who think of the group as being really central to how we thrive.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Thank you. I really appreciate, you know, you cementing us in the sort of like historical legacies of it and why they've started right, as we all have, you know, certainly talked about, whether that's within this podcast or beyond. As we know, through histories of colonialism, of imperialism, right, these structures have been put in place to disinherit to, you know, I mean be propertied and and rid people of their rights in a lot of ways. And I think oftentimes we talk about freedom in a sense of political freedom, right, you're a citizen not being referred to as property, but also a large part of that freedom is our economic, you know, endeavors and wanting to feed our families and grow, et cetera, and in many ways, you know, these systems have thwarted people's abilities to do that. And you know Patna Raskas, as you know, it's also known as our ways to circumvent that.

Speaker 2: 15:26

People brought over on boats, this idea of food and music and art and dress fashion, all of these kind of real, major contributions to make the Caribbean and the world better. Actually, this infusion of African culture and life. Why wouldn't people also bring their expertise and know-how about how we do business in society? And that's exactly what people brought. They taught us how to humanize economic systems.

Speaker 2: 16:05

There's actually a beautiful book. It was written in 1996. I always refer people to it. It was written by two women, sandra Berman and Shirley Ardner, and they wrote this book called Money Go Rounds, and Money Go Rounds is. I take it as a case study. It doesn't read as a harsh academic text. Rather it's a beautiful unfolding of stories from around the world, in the West but also in the South, of why women particularly gravitate to these Roska, mutual Aid, financial Economic Systems, and the stories that unfold are quite powerful in terms of how people mitigate intrusions on their freedoms, but also how they open up new opportunities in terms of friendships and the kinds of life and business projects that they want to do in the future.

Speaker 1: 17:06

That sort of you know is a great point to connect us to even the work in your book as well For our listeners tuning in who want to check it out.

Speaker 1: 17:14

The name of Dr Hussain's book is the Banker Ladies, vanguards of Solidarity Economics and Community-Based Banks. There's also an accompanying documentary so I'll be sure to link both of those for interested listeners. But in a lot of ways your work highlights what I think, at least in my mind, wasn't always super underscored in my understanding of Padnas. It's always been very communal right, but I don't think I necessarily was aware of how much women in a lot of ways dominated, as you're outlining for us. And so in a lot of ways your work highlights both how women have been really central in the continuation of Rosca's, as well as the community knowledge and Afrocentric approaches to economics that have transpired as a result and so sort of how do you see these groups differing from Western capitalist principles and teachings that you know really primarily and I may be leading you in a way, but they prioritize the individual right as opposed to the community in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2: 18:18

Yeah, and I think that that's the whole game with this push for modernity right, we try to give these sort of corporate, neoliberal prescriptions of what success and business in society looks like. And it's always linear, it's always a linear project, it's always individualized, it's always privatized and there's always this understanding that there's one rational actor, that there's no other alternative to the corporate business model. And what these women who organize Roskas in the Caribbean, in the diaspora, are doing are pushing against inequities, inequality, business exclusion, by saying that those prescriptions of individuality, of demeaning culture, of thinking that the communal is inferior, and what they're doing is pushing against that rhetoric, those stereotypes, to negate African collectivity, to show that there is value, that there is a logic to cooperation, that there is a logic to collectivity. Nobel Peace Prize winner Eleanor Ostrom wrote a book called Governing the Commons. So we know within the academic arenas that women have always been at the forefront in terms of thinking through how to mobilize communities in a strategic way to maintain humanity. And that's what exactly the banker ladies are doing. You know, there is a rationale for grouping together when times are complex and so collectivity, this idea of self-initiative when you're being excluded, is very much the thought process of the work and life story of Marcus Garvey, right, like this whole idea of thinking through business on your own terms, right.

Speaker 2: 20:35

And I like the work of Robin Kelly. You know Freedom Dreams, I mean. This just shows this idea of emancipation and liberation comes from within, right. And the idea that these women are pushing against corporate ways of doing business by choosing collectivity is really key because what they're saying is that trust and reciprocity trust and reciprocity, not raw profiteering is what matters in this world. And that's a huge response to people who really are convinced that there is no other alternative to the ways and that growth, the growth thesis, is the only way that we can move and modernize society. And they're like putting the brakes on that because they're saying there's value to mutual aid, there's value to collectivity and that's how we're going to empower not just women but all of society. And so they're leading us to really think through how does development look, how does more just economic systems look, if we were to do that together, collectively?

Speaker 1: 21:51

One of the most interesting parts to me in your book is just the way you have really mapped what these Roskas look like across different places.

Speaker 1: 22:03

You have really mapped what these Roskas look like across different places in a very of course you know this is a Caribbean podcast and we talk about diaspora all the time, right, but there are obviously, as you know, distinctions between.

Speaker 1: 22:14

You know what it looks like in parts of Africa, in the Caribbean, in you know, the global north, as people have migrated to US, canada, uk, etc. Global north as people have migrated to US, canada, uk, etc. You included a picture in your book, but there is this very vivid moment for me upon reading it, where there's a picture I can't remember which African country right now, but there's a picture of like what is more or less their Padna like place, which to me was so interesting because it's always been like a oh you know, cousin, auntie, whatever has to go drop off the money at the banker's house or whatever, as opposed to an actual location, and so could you share a little bit about you know how you've seen some of these distinctions between or across different places, and another thing that I think comes up throughout your book is the ways that they're looked at differently. It's very much so celebrated in the Caribbean, but you've seen very different world, particularly those Caribbean women who keep holding it up every day.

Speaker 2: 23:30

There's a term that I love coming out of Haiti, the potomitan, because I think that that terminology is so powerful in that it speaks to sort of women holding up society Right, and there is so much of that going on within the Caribbean and its diaspora and when you travel to understand where these systems come from in Africa. I traveled to Ethiopia and Ghana a lot in writing this book, and Ghana a lot in writing this book, and it was such a non-issue the value of these cooperative money systems. In Ethiopia they call them ekub, and in Ghana it's known as susu, and I think what you're referring to in the book is a photo of the National Ghana Susu Cooperative Institution, and they had regional offices in Cape Town and in Accra. We have so much to learn from the South in terms of their pragmatism in recognizing informal institutions that the populations benefit from, and so in Ghana they have these powerful susu systems that the majority of the population are engaging in. Most of it's informal and there's no red flags with that For them. It's seen as something positive for society that it enhances who we are in civil society. It builds social bonds, but they also wanted to make room for those people who wanted more insurance or guarantees when risk could happen. And so Ghana has taken on a very pragmatic approach to thinking about SUSU, both in the formal but also in the informal, and creating that space in their financial ecosystem so that both kinds of SUSU can operate and function in their business world. And so Ghana is one example. In South Africa they have these stock bail systems and they've taken on more of a capacity building approach to stock bail system, and so they have the National Stock Bail Association of South Africa, nasasa, and they do mostly training to upgrade and to spur on savings and collectivity among people in their country.

Speaker 2: 26:06

If we travel to South India, in Kerala, people have a powerful system, generally in India but mostly in the South, of legalizing the chit system, localizing the CHIT system. That's what they call their RASCAs, because they see the power of collective savings among people who feel abused and profiled when they go into banking systems. And so they've thought about really consciously thought about how do we now incorporate about really consciously thought about how do we now incorporate localized systems that come out of the grassroots for people who may feel alienated by corporate or commercial banks. And so I think we you know we tend to export knowledge and technical assistance to the South.

Speaker 2: 27:01

But what this work has been doing has been really importing expertise from the South to places like Canada and really learning that, you know, racial capitalism is very much embedded in the Americas, in Europe, where Blacks are minorities and are feeling under attack, particularly in this era, and so this idea of group economics that Du Bois wrote about many, many, many years ago still has so much relevance in the world we live in today.

Speaker 2: 27:41

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard is an American feminist and economist who is writing about cooperatives for decades, and she wrote a book called Collective Courage where she outlines traces the historical traditions of cooperative institutions across the United States and recognizes that many of these institutions had to be hidden because of the dangers and life threats if people went public about their informal or formal cooperative institutions. So there's a real sort of divergence in my work between the Roskas that appear in the Caribbean and then the kind of traumas that unfold when they appear in big cities like Toronto, miami, new York City or London, england, the kinds of harms that are happening to the same cooperators who come out of Africa and the Caribbean.

Speaker 1: 28:49

You did mention risks involved and I don't know if, in doing the work of trying to understand what ROSCA's are and how they work and you know, obviously they've had a tremendous impact.

Speaker 1: 29:01

But with all things, they're not perfect right, and so it could be risky, if no sense, if you know a person in your group doesn't put in their hand or you know the banker goes missing.

Speaker 1: 29:14

Nothing is perfect, but those can be certain situations that arise from being in a ROSCA. But I think, more overwhelmingly than not, we do have to take into account what risks look like in terms of you know that might be a risk if you go the ROSCA route, but then what is the alternative if it's, you know the bank isn't necessarily even going to lend you money for whatever reason or what may have you. So certain things to just take into account for those wanting to understand Roscoe's. I did bring up, you know, this sort of changing dynamic in terms of the awareness and celebration of Roscoe's, especially as we, you know, have moved through time and space. How have you really seen Roskas change and really the awareness and celebration of them? And you know that could be in a lot of ways, due to, of course, migrations and movement, but also how have they changed due to you know things like technology.

Speaker 2: 30:09

Lots of things to unpack here and exciting, and there's so much scope for new lines of inquiry with this kind of research. So I hope that what at least I'm doing with many others who've been thinking about informal institutions is really sort of now creating an opening for people in the academy to start really taking serious this, these kinds of institutions that are women-led, black women-led in particular, but also that they have chosen purposefully to work and grow informal types of institutions because they see value for it in our quote-unquote modern society. I just wanted to touch a little bit about the kinds of challenges that happen within RASCAs. As you mentioned earlier, we have to be careful not to romanticize RASCAs, because with everything in our world there's always a degree of risk, for sure. And how do you manage that? And so over the years of doing my research, I found that people would come out in droves, unlike when I was studying more professionalized microfinance. I had to try to convince people to show up to these meetings, but with the partner or the susu or the box, and people would fill a room, because this is the first time for many that people were coming to them to ask for their expertise on a financial system. That was about knowing things that could bring positive change in society, and so I always felt very humbled by that turnout for these focus groups or meetings, collective meetings we would have in various places.

Speaker 2: 32:05

And the one thing that I noted partway through my research is that I needed to speak to Rosca users, these SUSU you know participants and members about the dangers or the risks that unfold when people participate in these groups, just so that we have clarity on what people are getting into. And what I found in these groups is that people would let you know about. You know there could be theft, there could be someone absconding. Sometimes confusion or favoritism, lack of privacy are issues that happen when you have an informal, community-driven bank like a Roscoe Podno or Susu going on. That are some of the issues that people have to contend with, and even with the most egregious stories that I heard in that room, I would always ask the question how many of you still participate in one of these Roscas? And overwhelmingly the majority of people would raise back that hand after telling me for about an hour and a half of the tragedy and harms they experienced or the risks they endured when they participated in a ROSCA, and often people would bring it down to governance, leadership as being a problem within the ROSCA to manage or steward the resources. So it wasn't as though they were giving up on the actual concept of what an informal collective money system looks like. Rather, they weren't convinced by, perhaps, the leadership or some of the members and how they were vetted to really manage those resources.

Speaker 2: 33:46

I say this because there is a commitment and a loyalty to these Rosca systems, particularly for people who have very limited options in terms of how they bank, or for people who find that it's more than just a money transaction. It's about building social bonds and camaraderie. And so later I started to understand why people would come to a focus group, speak about the grievances within Orozco but at the same time admit quite honestly that they still participated in those groups. Because the love for those financial systems is cultural. It has been a legacy, an heirloom that has been passed down through generations. And because there's one mishap doesn't mean that the system is defective. It just means that we have to do better in terms of how we structure accountability. And I thought how powerful is that when people come together through their own citizen engagement and figure out what rules make sense? So I know I diverted away from your question in terms of like sort of innovations that are happening in the Rosca system, and they're a lot.

Speaker 2: 35:10

Technology has really taken over, particularly with the younger generation I say people in their 20s and 30s, across Europe and North America. It's a way of them staying in touch and expanding membership to reach all the way back to the Caribbean. It's beautiful to see that space isn't an interruption now in terms of how Raskas have historically been done, many of the women when I started more than a decade ago doing this work, were meeting at people's houses, churches or mosques, I mean that's or schools. That's how people did it Face to face, in person. Do a potluck or meet at someone's house, right, have jerk, have your roti, whatever. It was like a celebration, really a party, and they would all be like we're doing our FET for Patna this week or whatever, and it's great, right.

Speaker 2: 36:05

But now these things have evolved.

Speaker 2: 36:07

The pandemic happened.

Speaker 2: 36:09

Younger people are seeing the value of what they call peer-to-peer lending and they like technology and that's why now banker ladies are thinking strategically in Toronto, canada, about how do you mobilize and advocate for a rightful recognition of these informal institutions and how do you now start to think about a little bit more of not necessarily formal legal recognition, but an appreciation for the contributions that mutual aid groups give to society, so that when people are using these systems, they don't have to do them in obscurity, they don't have to be fearful that these resources will be confiscated, and so that people are now thinking through and those are additional risks.

Speaker 2: 37:06

To get back to our story on risk is that in North America, the divergence is that people are feeling surveilled when they participate on their own accord to gift each other these ROSCA payments. They feel as though there are threats to participating in groups like this. It's seen as subversive or illegal. And there's nothing illegal about these systems because it's about self-help and cooperation, and so technology has played a major role. When people can't meet in person, pandemics racism, racial capitalism that people are figuring out how to use applications on their phones to share monies.

Speaker 1: 37:54

I've certainly thought through that and even you know, on one sense, the ability of that to even extend out your, your Padna or your Roscoe, right before it would be. You know somebody that you could more easily access by car, by walking, or you know those sorts of modes of transportation, but now you could be in a Padna from. You were in college in your 20s or something, and then you migrate out to the US, for instance, and still want to participate and in a lot of ways, due to technology, can still be able to do that. But also, I think that point that you're making in terms of surveillance and how these other sort of more formalized or, of course, global and capitalist structures impact our abilities to feel safe within these communal practices as well.

Speaker 2: 38:44

And you know, these systems are evolving all the time. Like when you think about things like financial technologies, or they call them fintech, or you think about microfinance or microcredit and crowdfunding. What are the roots and the origins of these institutions? The genealogy will trace you back to these Rosca systems, which were really communal, collectively, done in a group circle type setting that people then would help and bestow resources social or financial on those that needed that kind of support. Right, and so I think that you know we think of all this evolution of Roskas. They have really sort of spread the light in terms of what is possible with the ways in which we work with money to repair harms and deal with inequity in business. Right, and so crowdfunding is really an updated version, right, of this money pooling partner system that we all know and love. Right, but we often don't credit it, we don't cite these women for this major piece of work that they have been doing for centuries.

Speaker 1: 40:08

On that point, I will, in a bit of a way, bring us to one of my favorite segments of the podcast, which is our Strictly Facts Sound segment. In a lot of ways, I immediately went to be quite frank. When we agreed to do this episode, I immediately was like, oh, I have to talk about this one song that talks about Padma. But before we get there, what are some of your favorite ways Roskas show up in?

Speaker 2: 40:32

you know whether that's particularly to the Caribbean or the diaspora, but for our popular culture, which ways they're represented to me, but there's been a number of calypso hits in Trinidad that speak about susu and the value of people coming together to support one another in hard times. But for sure, more recently I've been really happy with looking at how a museum has taken seriously the work and the writings of the Windrush generation coming out of London and England, particularly Jamaican immigrants who went there in the 30s, 40s and 50s, and sort of the atrocities and the vile racism that they had to encounter when they went there to work, and that in so many of the stories. When you read these small stories about the Windrush generation and there's a lot of them online, if you just Google Windrush and you read about the stories, the sort of personal accounts of what people had to go through without fail, you'll always hear about the partner system, because that played a vital role in sort of settling immigrants into their new society and giving them a leg up. People weren't allowed to go to banks or there was no space for them, so they created their own banking system and what's beautiful is that decades later in the United Kingdom, in London, seat of empire, the Bank of England Museum, in partnership with a very feisty Caribbean duo, a mother and daughter, who run this museum and heritage museum, came together and created an exhibit on the pot in hand, and that is, to me, the ultimate expression of art, really bringing home the value and the financial expertise that Caribbean people have brought from home to the rest of the world.

Speaker 2: 43:02

Because when corporations and commercial banks have been complicit in extending racial capitalism and bias against people who emigrate to these countries, the Bank of England recognized the value and the ingenuity of Caribbean people to devise their own cooperative banks called PARTNA, and to see and witness that on full display at the Bank of England's museum, who has been so problematic with slavery to be able to, for us to go to that exhibit where thousands of people pass through that museum, was really something to anchor and validate the work that these women have been doing for centuries, and so for me that is the ultimate.

Speaker 2: 44:03

So if people have time, they want to check out the Patna exhibit at the Bank of England Museum with MuseumAnd they most definitely should, because it's beautiful, it's a beautiful thing to see. It kind of really does underline sort of all the hard work that they have been doing for years without any credit or citation, and I'm so glad that we get to sing about these experiences. We write poetry about the Patna and the Susu system, but to actually see it in a museum that has wronged the Caribbean diaspora for so long and for them to validate and recognize that as something we brought as a contribution to financial economies is important, definitely, definitely.

Speaker 1: 44:53

I will be sure to link that for our listeners if they definitely want more information, want to check it out. My recommendations are a little less formal, but I do think museums, in a way, are very proud statements, as you outlined for us right In a lot of ways I hope we take more advantage of. And it's like a portal.

Speaker 2: 45:15

Right, it's a portal for people who don't even know about these systems and to be like, oh, that's what they're doing after church, you know what I mean. And then for them to say, oh, it's not negative, look at how it's being. These stories are being explained, it has some purpose, right? Yeah, go ahead, I want to hear your contributions I have.

Speaker 1: 45:41

I have a book which is called Padna Money Stories by Deanne Heron. I think there's been a part one and a part two, I believe and in a lot of ways, I think it's very, you know, funny. It's comical, but also, at the core of it obviously is Padna and the ways that it has helped support her family through migrations beyond Jamaica to, you know, to the UK, to the US, et cetera. The other one I'm always going to, if I can do a song of, just as a lover of music.

Speaker 1: 46:14

So, in 2018, dance hall artist Shano, you know, released a song called Pana Dra and you know, of course, it's a song, it's a dance hall song, so it's upbeat song. It's a dancehall song, so it's upbeat, it's things to that nature. But I think it's really speaking to what we've talked about today in terms of its, you know, ability to help really, um, support our dreams and our communities. Like, there's a point in the chorus where he says wait till I get my padna, may I go buy mama everything she want? Or there's another line when he gets his Padna draw, he would put it down on a house that he'll be proud of, right? These are really the things that undergird Padna right, it's the fact that it is to support us in funding these things that have been systemically not really available to us in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2: 47:03

So like the everyday uses right of the system. Yeah, that's great. Um, and there is a calypso song. Um, you know, I'm sort of picking up, uh, trinidadians, but they have a calypso song called susu, but I can't remember for the life of me who sang it. That they played, I think, at the carnival.

Speaker 1: 47:22

I will find it, don't worry I will.

Speaker 1: 47:24

I'm very diligent that way, so I'll find it, and, of course, be sure to link all of those for our listeners tuning in.

Speaker 1: 47:32

As a closing, you know, really we've talked a lot about, you know, these social and systemic issues that have really hindered the ways that people of color, that Black people, marginalized communities, et cetera, and the ways that these structures have really impacted our loans. But there's also all of these other sort of, you know, quick loan businesses and all of these other things that have been arising that, in very similar ways to or, you know, in line with these capitalist systems, are threats to our freedoms, right? Capitalist systems are threats to our freedoms, right? And so, through you know, our cultural awareness of Roskas and other community banking practices. Really, how do you hope that? You know we continue to increase the awareness of what it teaches, not just, you know, internally, for being able to afford, you know, the house, or you know, sending your kid to college, but the I think more so. I'm coming from like a emotional and, you know, internal knowledge or cultural knowledge perspective and other things like financial literacy and all of those things that it also teaches us as well.

Speaker 2: 48:41

Yeah, I think that the way forward for these ROSCA systems is to really educate, advocate and stop the harms and start to recognize. How do we remunerate? In the Caribbean at least they're recognized and not vilified like they are in the global north, but we're still not paying or compensating women for this community-based work in terms of mobilizing and supporting and building really strong civic societies. And I think we need to think about how do we start to program community development funds or international development funds towards community building. That is, thinking about mutual aid, solidarity economies, rosca systems where these women are the experts and hire them. They're doing this voluntarily and I think that there has to be a movement policy-wise to start incorporating Roskas as part of human development, whether it be trainings, whether they are trainers, and to really put pressure on the cooperative system to expand more democratic institutions, and ROSCAs can be a part of that movement building. So across the US and Canada there's lots of credit unions and cooperatives. We should start lobbying them to really recognize the validity of these Roscoe movements and that their partners wanting to uplift membership institutions so policy-wise for sure Share the film about the banker ladies.

Speaker 2: 50:36

I mean that film was co-created with them. It beat the release of my book. Because these women were on a mission, a practical mission to change mindsets. That's all they wanted is to change mindsets for the kinds of work that they're doing and for people to start seeing the value of the Patna and Susu system and to celebrate it in society. We all have a stake in making sure that these ancestral heirlooms of Roskas stay in our society, because it's not just work that's good for Black citizens, but it's good work for all people who feel marginalized and alienated by the current economic system.

Speaker 1: 51:24

I think that is a beautiful point to end on. So, dr Hossain, thank you so much for joining us for this episode, for sharing your expertise with us. Big up to all Padna participants and all banker ladies. This was really a tremendous episode. For our listeners tuning in, if you hadn't learned and heard of Padna or Roskas before, I hope you really enjoyed and learned a lot. And for our listeners who are familiar, be sure to you know, drop it in a comment or send us a DM or something like that and tell us your familial Padna story, or Susu or you know what have you, and share what it has meant for the trajectory of your family. And so with that I will bring us to a close and until next time, look more. Thanks for tuning in to Strictly Facts. Visit strictlyfactspodcastcom for more information from each episode. Follow us at Strictly Facts Pod on Instagram and Facebook and at Strictly Facts PD on Twitter.