This event features Anitra Nelson (Central Victoria) and Vincent Liegey (Budapest) speaking on their recent books – Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide and Pandemic Solidarity: Mutual Aid during the Covid-19 Crisis.

Description

Is postcapitalism nigh? If so, what visions and practices exemplify postcapitalism? Revolutions are wrought from testing times and sparks that light the way ahead. These two books have evolved as international collaborations from contemporary social movements. One explains the background, activities, and political achievements and challenges for ‘degrowth’. The other analyses the eruption of mutual aid organisations across 18 countries and regions in the current pandemic. They are both anti-capitalist and imbued with transformational insights. Degrowth is an holistic movement to decolonise our growth imaginaries and forge a future where everyone’s basic needs are met while respecting planetary limits. Spheres of degrowth activism include collective experimentation in self-provisioning and relocalising economies, protest and resistance, and decentralised horizontal networking around a degrowth project. Grassroots mutual aid groups rallied in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that highlighted weaknesses in contemporary states and market economies. Acting with immediacy, self-sacrifice, bravery and compassion, organised resistance across the globe demonstrates values of a safer future built on solidarity economies and polities. These real-life stories have been recorded and written by the multiple voices of Colectiva Sembrar, edited by Marina Sitrin.

Authors bios:

Honorary Principal Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (University of Melbourne), Associate Professor Anitra Nelson is author of Small is Necessary: Shared Living on a Shared Planet (2018) and co-editor of Life Without Money (2011), Housing for Degrowth (2018) and Food for Degrowth (2020). Vincent Liegey is an engineer, interdisciplinary researcher, spokesperson for both the French and international degrowth movements, and coordinates Cargonomia — a centre for research and experimentation on degrowth, a social cooperative for sustainable logistical solutions and local food distribution using cargo-bikes in Budapest. Note These books launch the Pluto Press (London) FireWorks series: https://www.plutobooks.com/pluto-seri... — click on books for details and to order.