‘A Company that Runs on Tummy Waters’

Abstract

An activist business, by definition, prioritizes values over profit, but the market must play some role—however small—in the running of any business. Davis’s comparative study of activist businesses in the US challenges the ‘widespread idea that the work of social movements and political dissent is by definition antithetical to all business and marketplace activity’ (4). In four chapters, each devoted to a different type of activist enterprise (Black-owned bookstores, head shops, feminist businesses and natural food stores), Davis shows how activist enterprises performed ‘political outreach’ and drew more people into their movements by offering free and safe spaces where marginalized groups could meet and political values were