Research & Degrowth, ENVJUSTICE and ACKnowl-EJ projects are hosting a special workshop during the Degrowth week at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest on “Towards Alliances of alternatives to development” (http://budapest.degrowth.org). Enjoy the discussion!
Speakers:
– Bengi Akbulut: “Commons and the Kurdish autonomy”
– Daniela Del Bene: “Energy Sovereignty, new alliances for systemic change”
– Ashish Kothari: “Confluences of alternatives”
– Julien Francois Gerber: “Gross National Happiness in Bhutan”
– Amaia Perez-Orozco: “Feminisms and the proposal of an eco-feminist degrowth project”
– Joan Martinez-Alier: “The global environmental justice movement and degrowth”
Moderator: Federico Demaria
Organizer: Research & Degrowth, ENVJUSTICE and ACKnowl-EJ projects
Abstract
The reasons behind degrowth appear more and more clear. We shall focus more on both the strategies and the actors. If in the last decade or so, much emphasis has been given to articulate a response to ‘why degrowth’, less energies have been spent to explore the What to do? How? Who and For Whom?
Critique and resistance are important, but not enough. We need our own narratives, and we need to critically articulate them in diversity and solidarity. Degrowth never aspired to substitute ‘development’ and become a new ‘plastic word’. Words like ‘development’ or ‘strategy’ have been called ‘plastic words’ because of their malleability and the uncanny way they are used to fit every circumstance. Like plastic Lego blocks, they are combinable and interchangeable. In the mouths of experts—politicians, professors, corporate officials, and planners—they are used over and over again to explain and justify plans and projects. In the 1940s Harry S. Truman made “underdevelopment” a keystone in U.S. foreign policy, and today the “developed” nations are dedicated to helping their “underdeveloped” neighbors. But who benefits from “development”?Instead, Degrowth -as a provocative slogan in the lines of post-development- intends to call for a matrix of alternatives and simultaneously articulate itself with a wide range of other movements.
The reasons behind degrowth appear more and more clear. We shall focus more on both the strategies and the actors. This roundtable focus upon the issue of alliances among social movements, from resistance to alternatives. Each speaker will briefly present the essence of one of this perspective, and explicitly engage with the question of how alliance could be articulated. The panel will focus upon environmental justice, commons, economic democracy, feminisms, degrowth and alternatives in general. However, part of this quest for a radical socio-ecological transformation are also transition, permaculture, Buen Vivir, post-extractivism, and many others.
Some of the questions to be explored include: Which commonalities and differences exist among different proposals? And how could this be turn into an enriching diversity, rather than a source of division? How shall we envision confluences? Etc…
VENUE: Corvinus University auditorium, Budapest (Open to the public)
TIME: Wednesday, 31st of August 2016, 16h30 – 18h30
The event will be live streamed
Language: English
MORE INFO: http://budapest.degrowth.org
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