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One of the best aspects of the degrowth.info blog is the wide range of topics that are addressed in the submissions we receive. We publish writing on degrowth conferences and events, theoretical arguments, lived experiences, book reviews, interviews, and a whole load more.
However, from time to time, we like to provide more of a steer towards a certain theme that we believe needs to be uplifted. It’s been a while since we concluded the last blog series we ran on degrowth and strategy. We were delighted at how that series led into a much wider conversation throughout the degrowth movement, with even a conference dedicated to the topic!
This time, we want to focus on ‘movements for social and environmental justice worldwide’. This may sound quite broad; perhaps everything on our site could come under this topic. However, we recognise that certain voices are often marginalised within the degrowth discourse, especially those in the global south and, hence, our particular aim with this series is to boost the visibility of grassroots movements, struggles, and campaigns around the world. Such movements may not explicitly identify with degrowth but align with its values and politics, and deserve more attention within degrowth discussions, which often remain very white, middle class and eurocentric.
Through this blog series we hope that the degrowth movement can learn about, and from, other social movements and build bridges with different struggles around the world. This could even create space for internationally collaborative projects.
We will be publishing articles on a rolling basis over the coming months, and we will add a link to each piece at the bottom of this page as they are released. If you would like to submit a pitch for the series, please see the instructions here – we would love to hear from you. Thank you for engaging with degrowth.info, and we hope you enjoy the series!
Overview of pieces of the series:
1. Farmers of La Via Campesina: we globalise struggles and hope! An interview with small-scale farmer Jean Thévenot.
2. Walking for Peace as Wars Rage On. An account of Walk Peace EU's marches for justice by Áine Donnellan.
3. A green mirage. How the hydrogen industry fuels environmental injustice in Antofagasta, northern Chile by Gabriela Cabaña.
4. Defending Ancestral Forests from Corporate Plunder. Boki women lead the way in Nigeria, by Francis Annagu.
Looking back at the past year in degrowth, as told by our blog
The first International Degrowth Conference held in Paris in 2008 was followed by another ten other conferences, most of which took place in Europe. These conferences provided room for the Degrowth community to meet and exchange on latest research. In Christiania Town (Copenhagen) in 2018, just before the 6th International Degrowth Conference in Malmö, degrowthers met in a new format. Going beyond research-related conversations, they instead discussed the “how” of Degrowth and started to organise the movement.
In October of this year Giorgos Kallis, Julia Steinberger and Jason Hickel were awarded 9.9 million euros by the European Research Council (ERC) for a project titled Pathways towards post growth deals. This constitutes the largest ever sum of funding for a degrowth research project! We interviewed Giorgos Kallis to find out more about this important milestone!
