Held annually in Athens, Roots Winter School (RWS) is a three-day progressive learning programme designed to cultivate hope, widen horizons, and catalyse action. RWS aims to push the boundaries of participants’ thinking, abilities, and imagination in order to foster global societies dedicated to planetary health and well-being. The program integrates critical theoretical thought with urgent political, socio-economic, ecological and cultural matters and experiences of struggles through a multifaceted methodology.
The methodology reflects the character of these sources of knowledge too: approaches coming from formal-education context (e.g. lecture, presentation, seminar) and non-formal processes of learning are mutually supportive. Our key objective is to amplify the program’s collective educational impact through encouraging co-learning experiences among the participants.
This Year’s Topic: Strategies for socio-ecological transformations in times of uncertainty
This year’s theme focuses on strategies for socio-ecological transformations in times of uncertainty, with a particular emphasis on socio-spatial justice. What are the relationships between global socio-spatial systems and local lived experiences? What is the role and implications of economic growth? How can we use the critical frame of degrowth to look through possibilities, policies and actions towards sustainable and equitable ecosystems that challenge mainstream perceptions of sustainability, including circular economy, smart cities, and green technological innovations? How intersectional, decolonial, and transfeminist processes can prioritise the needs of humans and beyond humans contributing to alternative socio-spatial visions across scales? What could be the diverse personal, collective, and institutional processes in such transformations?
On June 6th we will once more celebrate the Global Degrowth Day (GDD). On this day, like last year, we want to show that there are alternatives to the capitalist growth society and that a good life for all is possible! This time of multiple crisis can be overwhelming, but it is also a crucial moment to re-think how we live and how societies are organized. Degrowth is a powerful tool to e...
On the occasion of the presentation of our project Degrowth in Movement(s) at the Budapest Degrowth Conference, commons activist Silke Helfrich wrote a summary on the event. Read more on the CommonsBlog.
By Christiane Kliemann When talking about building alliances - the focus of the third conference day - the issue of equality immediately comes into view, as there are many dimensions of inequality deeply rooted in the current growth-based economic model. In order to overcome this model, all these dimensions need to be addressed and all possible change-agents equally taken on board. Adelhei...
