Thematic streams

Anarchism and Degrowth

What to expect?

The Degrowth movement advocates for the need of a radical transformation of the economic system if humanity is to avoid the existential risk of a wide-ranging ecological collapse.

However, the possible implications for the political system to bring about and sustain this change are less clear:

What role do the state and institutions play in a degrowth transition? And what are the possibilities for autonomous groups to bring about the systemic change implied by degrowth?

While academia has not yet provided a satisfying answer to this, all around the world grassroots movements are already experimenting with alternative, autonomous ways of organizing.

In the Anarchism and Degrowth Key Conversation we explore the position of the state and the role of organizing outside of the state by looking at various groups which are at the forefront of autonomous political organization across the globe today.

From revolutionary Rojava to La ZAD of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, from the Zapatistas in Chiapas to squatters in the Netherlands – what can degrowth learn from these diverse movements? What political strategies and ways of organizing already exist in these places, and what experiences are there of organizing with/in relation to local ecologies and environments?"

How can we most effectively struggle for the values at the core of a degrowth vision, namely care, solidarity and autonomy?