El Cambalache: Inter-Change Value

El Cambalache means “the Swap” in English. It is an economy in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, based on feminism and “de-coloniality.” The nucleus of women that generates this alternative model is presenting “Inter-Change Value,” a documentary film about the economy they have constructed. They describe it as follows:
“The capitalist economic system has provoked a social rupture and loss of community values, such as mutual aid and bartering or exchanging. This rupture foments a sense that people and things can be discarded. In El Cambalache, by using exchange and inter-actions, we work to generate change from the personal out to those around us and use things that appear to no longer have value. We seek to mend the rupture that we see in our worlds.”