Logo degrowth
Scientific paper

Text

Open Localism

Authors:
Filka Sekulova, Francois Schneider

Entry type:
Scientific paper

Year of publication:
2014

Publishers:
Degrowth Conference Leipzig 2014

Language:
English

Abstract: The so-called “open-growth-society”, related to globalisation, has only been open for a few: the rich ones, and for the products from multinationals. Criticizing globalisation, worse promoting degrowth, leads very quickly to accusations of being reactionary. In practice now growth and globalisation in this finite world leads to increasing inequality and therefore – frustration, closures (the rise of extreme rights), and conflicts for resources. Localism, if it is about being in relation with our surrounding environment, does not need to be closed. Within degrowth we talk about the importance of supporting, practicing and theorizing the so-called “open-localism”, or "cosmopolitan localism". Open-localism does not create frontiers, and cherishes diversity locally. It implies reducing the distance between consumer and producers (or be "consumers-producers"), being sensitive to what we can see and feel, while being cosmopolitan, in line with the antic citizen of the world Diogenes. Rather than building an identity it implies means acting in coherence, and certainly not given by consumer products, or exclusion.

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