By Nick Meynen.
The term Degrowth has emerged over the last 10 years. This “bomb word” has been used to inspire in-depth debates on whether infinite growth in a finite world is desirable or even possible. There is now a significant momentum, academic and social, around the idea of degrowth. Other conferences, research projects, courses and summer schools on degrowth have taken place in the same spirit in India, Quebec, Canada, England, Sweden, Greece, Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, the Basque Country, etc. Over 200 articles and 8 special issues on the degrowth topic have now gone through normal peer review processes.
The main goal of the upcoming Budapest Degrowth conference and week is on one hand to question the limits to growth in understanding the challenges faced by society and on the other hand to implement dialogue about solutions on different levels. The 5th International Degrowth Conference will take place in Budapest from 30 August to 3 September 2016. While the registration to the conference is closed you are still invited to join the related Budapest Degrowth Week or to relocalize the conference.
The “Budapest Degrowth Week” is an open festival with more than 100 practical workshops, panel and participatory discussions, and also concerts, artistic performances and interactive tours throughout the city. All these programmes are free. The tentative programmes in Corvinus University are here and the programmes all around the city are here (please be aware that these programme could change).
We like to point your attention to one session from Degrowth Week in particular. Research & Degrowth, ENVJUSTICE and ACKnowl-EJ projects are hosting a special workshop called “Towards Alliances of alternatives to development” with the following line-up:
– Bengi Akbulut: “Commons and the Kurdish autonomy”
– Daniela Del Bene: “Energy Sovereignty, new alliances for systemic change”
– Ashish Kothari: “Confluences of alternatives”
– Julien Francois Gerber: “Gross National Happiness in Bhutan”
– Amaia Perez-Orozco: “Feminisms and the proposal of an eco-feminist degrowth project”
– Joan Martinez-Alier: “The global environmental justice movement and degrowth”
Moderator: Federico Demaria
Wednesday, 31st of August 2016, 16h30 – 18h30 in the Corvinus University
Other events organised by the Research & Degrowth team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona can be found on this page.
Also read this double interview with Joan Martinez-Alier and Federico Demaria on the connections between the global environmental justice movement and the degrowth debates.
For those organisations interested in organising the next degrowth conference in 2018: the call for applications is open en there will be a workshop in Budapest to look into the details.
