MDF is a federation of 25 associations (“Clubs”) and 29 informal groups, spread in Italy both in urban and rural areas.

MDF deems it is crucial to establish local roots, providing all interested people with the possibility to meet each other, discuss and work together for developing, practising and promoting a new cultural paradigm. The MDF local clubs are intended as means to achieve this objective: small convivial communities where interpersonal relations are based on solidarity, friendship, free gifting and mutual exchange of time and experience.

Within the clubs, discussion and training activities are carried out both on the theoretical aspects of degrowth – what degrowth means to us individually and as a group, in relation to a change that starts inside each person – and on practical aspects, such as home production. Local clubs activities are directed also towards the outside, promoting the ideas of degrowth in different ways and taking initiatives in three domains: Lifestyles, Technologies and Politics.

On the basis of the case study presentation, we will analyse the activities carried out by clubs, in particular highlighting the virtuous tension deriving from the combination of different actors and strategies (focused mostly on building alternatives, but also on oppositional activism, research and reformism) both at local and national level.

We will furthermore explore the connections between local clubs, MDF, the international degrowth movement and other associations that work in the sustainability field. Finally, we will argue that it is fundamental to built small degrowth communities on local basis in order to enhance new imaginaries.

Additional links:

• Ptt presentation MDF. Convivial degrowth communities in action
• Web site of Movimento per la Decrescita Felice

This media entry was a contribution to the special session „The “Movimento per la Decrescita Felice” (MDF)“ at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest in 2016.