Bio
Lila Gaudêncio is a social scientist and PhD candidate in Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge, researching solidarity-based economies in Brazil, particularly community development banks and their complementary currencies. Funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust, her work examines how these alternative financial systems reshape economic practices and everyday life.
As a Fellow at the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy (ICDE) in 2025/2026, Lila examines how digital community currencies, specifically Brazil’s E-dinheiro platform, reshape solidarity finance, cooperative dynamics, and individual perceptions of economic participation when scaled through government-backed programs, highlighting how such platforms can democratize economic participation, improve cooperative governance, and embed cooperative principles directly into financial technology.
She has presented at major conferences, including LASA, SLAS, and the Latin American and Caribbean Conference of Social Sciences, and co-organized events such as Remaking Capitalism: Popular and Solidarity Economies in Latin America. Beyond academia, she has extensive experience in museum curation, exhibition design, and public engagement.