Announcements

Degrowth UK Website Now Open to Contributions

Have you heard about a campaign, or perhaps you are involved in a local community group?

Have you read something interesting, or have you been thinking about writing a word or two to the Degrowth Community?

We are now accepting contributions!

We want to nurture the degrowthuk.org website to be a resource for the UK degrowth community and allies.

We are especially interested in signposting degrowth related activities and materials, including those which may have already been published elsewhere.

Submissions could include; information about campaigns, upcoming events, research, publications and comment pieces (short form is encouraged). We are open to your creative lead!

However, to do this we need your help.

What to do:

  • For content you would like to be re-posted on the website please provide a brief summary and link to the event or publication details, along with any copyright free images you would like included. We prefer open source publications, but all are welcome.
  • For original submissions, please send a brief email of enquiry outlining your proposal.

For all enquires and submissions please e-mail: degrowthuk[at]gmail.com

Thank you! Your contributions will help us to develop and expand the degrowth community in these islands.

books, News

Degrowth and Strategy

International Book Launch.

Our friends in Degrowth Vienna have recently released a new book titled ‘Degrowth and Strategy‘. The book which has been extremely well received by the wider movement, advances the debate on strategy for social-ecological transformation.

Bringing together voices from degrowth and related movements, ‘Degrowth and Strategy’ explores and identifies key directions for the degrowth movement, and scrutinises strategies in practice that aim to realise a degrowth society. To mark the release of the book, of which a free pdf copy can be accessed here, a two-part webinar has been co-organised with Degrowth Talks.

The first webinar on October 27th  will focus on strategising for degrowth with and within diversity. The second webinar on November 2nd will explore how and to what extent degrowth practices challenge corporate power.

The webinars will be an opportunity to “Celebrate the book’s publication with our international editors, contributors and readers”. Panel discussions will be followed by Q&As.

Part I: October 27th, 20:00-21:30 CET (online)
Strategising for degrowth with and within diversity

with Susan Paulson, Joe Herbert, Livia Regen and Merle Schulken, moderated by Oxana Lopatina

–> Link to recording

Part II: November 2nd, 18:30-20:00 CET (online)
Strategies in practice: challenging corporate power

with Colleen Schneider, Tahir Latif, Mario Díaz and Noémie Cadiou, moderated by Charles Stevenson

–> Link to recording

events, News

Event: Envisioning a sustainable future in Northampton

WEBINAR – Envisioning a sustainable future in Northampton
Northampton University – Faculty of Business and Law
Envisioning a sustainable future in Northampton: promoting a green post-pandemic recovery
Date: 23-11-2020 – from 4pm to 6pm
Collaborate link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/d5c43a58fe444b28afcd856467af75cf
If you want to attend this event please click here to send an email to Elodie René before November 21st.

Description:
This webinar will gather UK-based researchers and practitioners involved in environmental and social
sustainability transitions.
Discussions will be structured around the following key questions:
1) What are the environmental origins of pandemics such as COVID-19?
2) Why our collective answer to this pandemic should integrate environmental parameters?
3) Can we afford (socially and ecologically) a business as usual recovery scenario?
4) To which extent a local ecological – degrowth transition can open new perspective to recover
from the Covid crisis?

Webinar Moderators: Elodie René

Confirmed speakers:
1. Overview of the impacts of current health crisis on the most deprived communities in Northampton
Robin Burgess
Chief executive at Northampton Hope Center and Chairperson at Northampton social
enterprise town.
2. Ecological transition in Northampton a grassroots perspective: a short history of Transition Town Northampton
David Garlick
Founder of Transition Town Northampton part of the global Transition network.
3. Why creating the conditions for a flourishing of the imagination is vital to the climate emergency?
Rob Hopkins,
Rob Hopkins is cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network, and the author
of The Transition Handbook, The Transition Companion, The Power of Just Doing Stuff, 21
Stories of Transition and most recently, From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of
imagination to create the future we want. He presents the podcast series ‘From What If to
What Next‘ which invites listeners to send in their “what if” questions and then explores how
to make them a reality. In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100
environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals.
Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film
phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three
TEDx events.
An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins also holds a doctorate degree from the University of Plymouth and
has received two honorary doctorates from the University of the West of England and the
University of Namur. He is a keen gardener, a founder of New Lion Brewery in Totnes, and a
director of Totnes Community Development Society, the group behind Atmos Totnes, an
ambitious, community-led development project.
4. Potential and limits of circular economy within the entertainment industry: an insider perspective
Tom Harper
Unusual Rigging, Managing Director
Tom was appointed as managing director at Unusual Rigging in April 2020. In his role as
sustainability coordinator, Tom established the company’s carbon reduction strategy in 2013
and is exploring the company’s potential, as an organization, to pioneer a ‘circular economic’
business model within the industry. Tom has an MBA in Innovation and the Circular Economy
and is co-project managing the implementation of a custom asset tracking software system
which will also improve the efficiency of the company’s workflow.
5. Can we afford a business as usual recovery scenario? Envisioning a Degrowth case against the business case.
Fabian Maier and Iana Nesterova,
Fabian is a PhD researcher at Nottingham University in the field of critical organisation
studies and studies cooperatives, grassroots and community-based organisations in relation
to degrowth. Fabian is interested in discourses around prefiguration, post-work, and
solidarity economies. He is a member of the ‘Degrowth Organisation and Economy Research
Group’ and active in a worker co-operative in the East Midlands.
Iana Nesterova, PhD is a researcher based in the UK. Her PhD focused on small business transition towards degrowth. Iana’s research interests include the philosophy underpinning sustainable change
and what sustainable change means and entails. She currently teaches health economics
from a heterodox economics perspective. She is a member of SUCH (Sustainable Change)
research network and the ‘Degrowth Organisation and Economy Research Group’.

 

events

Economy and livelihoods after Covid-19: Save the date, 1-4 Sept. 2020

Economy and livelihoods after Covid-19

A global on-line symposium of the International Degrowth Network and the International Society for Ecological Economics.

September 1 to September 4th, 2020, University of Manchester.

The sessions will be in the afternoons BST.

Join us for this symposium over four days. We’ll be considering the implications of the global Covid-19 pandemic for economy and livelihoods. The Covid-19 pandemic and responses to it have had deeply  unequal impacts on lives, livelihoods and well-being across race, gender and class.  At the same time it has opened up the space for new possibilities for building alternative livelihoods and economies that can take us beyond a capitalist economy that requires ever expanding growth.  Will we go back to business as usual with all the ecological, social and economic risks that will bring or take the path towards a new kind of economy that provides for human needs of all while restoring and protecting the natural world that we all depend on?

Programme and registration details now at this Eventbrite Link

Here it is again: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/economy-and-livelihoods-after-covid-19-tickets-116083505891

events, News

Announcement about the Manchester Degrowth and ISEE conference

The Manchester 7th International Degrowth and 16th International Society for Ecological Economics Joint conference was due to be held in September 2020.  It will not come as a surprise to you that given the global Covid 19 pandemic we have been forced to postpone the conference.  We do so with deep regret.  The conference is now planned to go ahead in the week of July 5th 2021.  The conference will retain is existing overarching theme of ‘Building Alternative Livelihoods’. It will also keep existing subthemes.  However, clearly the overarching theme has new importance in the light of the global pandemic.  We will be sending out a new additional call in September 2020 looking more specifically at the implications of the Covid 19 pandemic for building and rebuilding alternative livelihoods.   It is planned that the conference in July 2021 will have a much larger virtual component than the original conference planned for September 2020.  Given the new arrangements we those who submitted proposals for contributions the following options  for  their proposals

1.    leaving their proposal as it is for consideration for the 2021 conference in Manchester;
2.    resubmitting  a revised version of their proposal for the 2021 conference in Manchester
3.    submitting a new proposal for the 2021 conference in Manchester
4.    withdrawing their proposal.

Those choosing the first option will not need to do anything.  It will be automatically considered for the July  2021 conference in Manchester.  Anyone wanting to pursue one of the other options please let us know by April 30th.  We will leave the call open for resubmissions and new submissions after this date.   Please also  let us know if you would like to present your session virtually or at the site in Manchester.

We do deeply regret having to postpone the conference until next year.  The team at Manchester did explore the possibility of doing the conference as a virtual conference in September 2020.  However, given the lockdown in the UK and after discussion with the conference administration at Manchester University,  it become apparent that the capacity did not exist to do this in September 2020.  The plan is to have a larger virtual component to the conference in 2021.  We do plan to offer a small online symposium in September 2020 specifically on the implications of Covid19 for ecological economics and degrowth.    We will announce further details about this colloquium later this year.

We would like to thank you for your patience in waiting for this update.  We are sorry we could not get back to you sooner.  As you can imagine it has been very difficult to reorganise the dates of the conference in current conditions.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes

The Local Organising Committee, Manchester

News

Oslo Architecture Triennale 2019 – architecture of degrowth

Maria Smith writes:

I’m one of the curators of the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2019 and our theme is the architecture of Degrowth. I’m writing today to invite you to contribute to this architecture festival!

We have this week published an open call: http://oslotriennale.no/en/news/oat-2019-open-call-for-projects for contributors to an architecture library of the near-future which you or people you know may be interested in submitting projects for. Please do circulate this! Thank you!

We are also looking for researchers conversant in Degrowth matters to collaborate with architects, artists and designers to create objects and experiences for this architecture library.

If responding to the open call makes sense to you then please go ahead and do that through the lovely online form in the link above. However, if you’re interested in contributing but aren’t too sure how your research relates to architecture, then just email me on maria.smith[AT]interrobang.london (replace the [AT] with the usual symbol) and please include:

  • “OAT Degrowth Research” in the subject line
  • c. 200 words on your Degrowth-related research
  • c. 200 word bio of yourself generally including which institutions you’re affiliated with, if any
  • Where you are based (so that if there are architects geographically near you we can take this into account when pairing people up, though this will of course only be one factor)

Please contact us before 19th November after which we will be doing a big pairing up exercise connection researchers with architects.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes,

Maria

p.s. Another strand of the Triennale is a book of short stories. If you or anyone you know are writing fiction about degrowth, please get in touch!