We, organizers and participants at the Degrowth Vienna 2020 conference demand equity and justice. We stand in solidarity with the people in the United States challenging white supremacist culture and with related global struggles. As activists, academics, artists, and practitioners we aim together to put an end to systemic oppression and structural racism; as again has been recently revealed by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor or Ahmad Auber. The conference expresses its global solidarity with all victims of police violence and systemic racism, and supports the antifascist movements facing criminalization. Racism and coercion are political issues that cannot be tackled on a moral basis only. This murder is the result of an oppressive and exploitative system where racism and coercion are key in maintaining domination and the exploitation of women, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and historically marginalized trans-/queer/non-binary people, people with disabilities, the working-class, and natures. Ending systemic racism is a liberatory means towards human emancipation. This requires the rejection of a policing system based on the devalorization of human beings as well as the destruction of nature, for the sake of capital accumulation through a white supremacist culture by political and economic elites. Overcoming systemic racism includes the rejection of the prison-industrial complex, reinforcing capitalist exploitation by criminalizing lives. It additionally calls for a transformation of the organisation of executive functions, away from oppression, and instead centred on the protection of human rights. We recognise that degrowth as a movement is still white dominated and euro-centered, and thus susceptible to the same structural discrimination that plagues our systems. We commit to work consciously as a community to address and improve in regards to racism internally. As a movement we fight for a world where every human and non-human being — of any colour, any gender, any sex and/or sexual orientation, any ableness, no matter of their geographic and social origins, beliefs or opinions — is entitled to dignity and to a meaningful and decent life. Thus, the degrowth movement fully embraces the claims of the protestors throughout the United States and beyond and expresses its support. With the awareness that our paths are still detached, we aim to advance our convergence and struggle forth in unity.
For many of us, swimming will have provided a temporary relaxing escape from the pandemic and searing heat in the recent summer months. In this piece republished from Undisciplined Environments, Elliot Hurst suggests the activity holds more radical potential than one might think. In Aotearoa New Zealand, shortly after arriving at the strategy gathering of a youth climate group, a friend ...
What does degrowth mean to you? By Marc Menningmann In this video, some of the scientists, activists and ordinary other participants who gathered at last year's Degrowth Conference in Leipzig share their personal understanding of degrowth. It shows how many different facets degrowth can have. Now we have added English subtitles to it which can be activated by clicking on the little green b...
Before an individual chooses to act, he or she requires a story or mindset to make sense of what the situation is about. Acting rationally in this sense means to act with reason, in congruence with one’s worldview and the individual interpretation of the “rules of the game.” Individual mindsets, however, are not fixed [...]
