WHEN
August 24th - 28th
WHERE
Gars am Kamp, Lower Austria
WHY
We want to go beyond the tendency of classical education to focus on the mind and create opportunities where participants can not only acquire knowledge, but also become passionate and active advocates for socio-ecological change. The festival is a place where learning with all the senses and creating something new are at the centre, alongside mind-focused academic discussions. Thematically, the core is about future and community building and equitable development. The aim of the festival is to inspire people to work together critically, politically and creatively for a just socio-ecological change for a good life for all people and living beings.
WHAT
Participants are invited to shape the festival and not just be passive consumers of another cultural event. In the field of embodied learning, we offer not only intellectual learning experiences, but those that involve the body, the emotions and their social conditioning. To meet the challenges ahead, we need empowered individuals and collectives to initiate change. In the afternoons, there will be Open Spaces where participants become co-creators of the festival, generating emotional, embodied and/or cognitive knowledge, workshops and discussions where we can inspire each other, be inspired, teach and learn, collaborate and be motivated to take action.
WHO
We became a team while organising last year's degrowth summer school in Barcelona. It was nice pushing a lot of content into our brains, and participating in many workshops presented by inspiring activist-academics and artists. But then we asked ourselves: what would happen if we left more space, time and energy for sharing inspirations, skills and knowledge amongst us? For really getting to know each other? We are on a collective investigation: how to create a celebratory space for conviviality and co-creation for the degrowth movement and beyond?
Find more info and book your ticket altshiftfestival.org
Digitalization is changing the world. And it's true: The vehicles of digitalization have spread through society at a rapid pace. Smartphones only entered the market a good ten years ago! Moreover, everywhere else in society - in companies, administrations, in agriculture, in transport and even in art and music - sensors, processors and many other digital devices are introduced. Yes, it is fair ...
Among the proposals of how to address the climate crisis, calls for a Green New Deal (GND) have recently gained a lot of traction. Riccardo Mastini's article laid out much of the content of current GND proposals as well as criticism from the degrowth perspective. While critical scrutiny is absolutely crucial to ensure that ideas for change truly live up to their goals it is also importa...
By Lasse Thiele Is degrowth only conceivable in the context of “oversaturated” industrial societies while the global “South” remains dependent on growth? In two installments, this article questions such assumptions. In this first part it introduces positions critical of development which refuse to adopt the Western model of prosperity; the second part will focus on the analysis of these positi...
