Jana Holz, Lilian Pungas and Matthias Schmelzer speak at the 9th international Degrowth Conference in Zagreb am 29 August – 02 September.

Session Overview:

Jana Holz

“Beyond fossil extractivism?” (with Anna Saave)

Lilian Pungas

“Degrowth Enthusiasm and the Eastern Blues” (with Gerrit von Jorck, Jana Gebauer)

“Degrowth from the East” (with Thomas Smith, Eva Fraňková, Ottavia Cima)

Matthias Schmelzer

“Degrowing concrete – On the history and future of the world’s most used and most destructive material”

“Planning Beyond Growth: the case for economic democracy within limits”
(with Elena Hofferberth, Cédric Durand)

“Ecological reparations and degrowth: Towards a convergence of alternatives around world-making after growth”
(with Tonny Nowshin)

Invitation

We invite you to the 9th International Degrowth Conference, which will be held in Zagreb, Croatia from August 29 to September 2, 2023!

Zagreb is a city whose local government is headed by former degrowth conference speakers. By connecting degrowth’s international audience with the realities of a semi-peripheral capital developing new justice and sustainability pathways, the degrowth movement will broaden its scope and affirm its position in the everyday lives of European citizens.  

To maximize networking and impact, the Conference will include a city-wide Degrowth Week alongside its research and activist part. The events and activities will take place at the Zagreb Fair, a valuable space and project from the socialist period which will host all the Conference sessions, the Museum of Contemporary Art, where we will have our opening ceremony, and the Youth Culture Centre „Ribnjak“, situated in one of the city’s most beautiful parks, which will house the festival part. 

The Zagreb conference will feature prominent keynote speakers – Kohei Saito, Roland Ngam, Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, Paul Stubbs, and Karin Doolan – and a couple of hundred scholars from around the world eager to discuss different aspects of a believable degrowth future. 

The day before the Conference opening – on Monday, August 28 – the 4thInternational Assembly of the Degrowth Movement will take place in the Youth Culture Centre “Ribnjak”, with plans to deliberate on the aims and organisation of the degrowth movement (more information here).

The Degrowth Week will include events such as an environmental film festival, a one-day activist-artistic festival, the presentation of the work of a thematic network for low carbon transition cooperation (METAR), and a number of activist/practitioner panels, presentations and workshops.

Since the call for proposals is closed, we invite anyone whose paper/presentation/workshop was accepted to register if they still haven’t (the regular conference fee is available until May 31 – https://odrast.hr/faq/#payment-accepted). If you don’t have a presentation and would still like to attend the conference, we invite you to register as well (https://odrast.hr/faq/#payment-participants) – the number of tickets is limited and will be granted on a first come, first served basis.

The LOC is currently working at full capacity to coordinate the Conference and the Degrowth Week program. After the program has been publish, in June, we will open a call for volunteers. We will be looking for volunteers to work on tasks in preparing the conference (knowledge of Croatian will probably be required), and for volunteers to manage the conference (English will be a must). All volunteers can expect free access to all Conference events. 

Please follow our webpage and social media accounts for more information and Conference news:

https://odrast.hr/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086474586446
https://www.instagram.com/9th_degrowth_conference/
https://twitter.com/9Conference 

We can’t wait to welcome you in Zagreb!

Yours, 

Zagreb LOC

The article “Rural bioeconomies in Europe: Socio-ecological conflicts, marginalized people and practices” was written by flumen-researchers Jana Holz, Philip Koch, Lilian Pungas and Dennis Eversberg in collaboration with the scientists Jonathan Friedrich and Jana Zscheischler from the ZALF (Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research) and published in GAIA. GAIA is a transdisciplinary journal that publishes on ecological perspectives for science and society.

Abstract: 

Bioeconomy policies claim to contribute to socio-ecological transformations and decreasing rural-urban inequalities. Based on examples of four bioeconomies in rural Europe, we argue that contrary to these claims, such policies to date have not de-escalated existing social conflicts but instead have often further contributed to polarization tendencies. To live up to those proclaimed goals, bioeconomy research and policy need to deprioritize economic growth and turn to more comprehensive considerations of socio-ecological contexts and the integration of the local population and alternative practices.

To the Article

The article “How the Bioeconomy Attempts to be Sustainable – A Discussion Using the Example of European Bioeconomy Policy and Finnish Forestry” (original in German) by Jana Holz and Philip Koch is part of the anthology “Dilemmas of Sustainability” edited by Henkel et al. (2023).

To the article

The Working Paper No. 215/2023 from the Institute for International Political Economy Berlin at the Berlin School of Economics and Law was authored by Lilian Pungas in collaboration with Jana Gebauer and Gerrit von Jorck.

Abstract

This paper traces the links between post-socialist transformations and the degrowth movement. Based on a series of workshops entitled “Degrowth Enthusiasm and the Eastern Blues” that we organised in recent years, this paper focuses on the following questions: what can we learn from the state-socialist societies’ transformation processes into capitalist societies? What experiences and practices before and after these transformations can potential degrowth societies build on? To what extent can people’s experiences with an alternative system and its transformation contribute to unfolding their potential in a social-ecological transformation and to overcoming ‘change fatigue’? We present key findings from our workshops, which we combined with our own empirical evidence from Estonia and a theoretical examination of (post-)socialist economics to form six theses that we consider essential for a decolonial degrowth debate.

To the Article

Journalist Florian Zinner takes a detailed and low-level look at flumen’s research on mentalities and the social-ecological transformation in issue #91 of MDR’s Climate Update, Friday, June 2, 2023.

You can find the full article in German here.

On 22.06.2023 Martin Fritz will give a talk at the colloquium on the history of science at the Ernst-Haeckel-Haus of the University of Jena entitled “A cartography of the social-ecological transformation in Germany: Exploring interconnections between classes, mentalities and practices”. The results of the relational analyses of the survey data of flumen will be presented and discussed with the participants.

On 05/31/2023, Martin Fritz and Linda von Faber presented flumen’s research at the Catholic Student Community in Erfurt. They gave a lecture on “Inequalities in the context of energy crisis and socio-ecological transformation” and afterwards discussed with the students about mentalities, ways of living and possibilities to cope with the double challenge of increasing inequalities and ecological crises.

Abstract

Forests are a crucial and contested part of nature. Their management is at the center of policies and conflicts around global sustainability aspirations and potential futures. Human attitudes and practices play major role in these policies and conflicts. This article focuses on the meanings humans attach to forests. These meanings act as drivers influencing activities and decision-making from forest use to governance, and escalation of forest conflicts.

This article sets out 1) to establish and develop the concept of the human-forest relationship (HFR) in order to elaborate on people’s forest-related meanings, and 2) to discuss the potentials of the HFR concept for forest policy and research with a focus on forest conflicts and potential futures.

The HFR concept depicts a reciprocal relationship between humans and forests that is formed as a result of personal experiences, life histories, as well as cultural and societal backgrounds and environmental settings. HFR possesses the future dimension, as the forest-related meanings may be reflected in the expectations that humans connect to the future state of forests. As forests differ from other natural environments ecologically, culturally, politically, and socially, the HFR concept contributes in identifying, describing and analyzing these forest- specific meanings influencing forest policy and management.

To the Article

“Von Yuppies, Ökos, Egos und dem kleinen Mann” is the title of Malene Gürgen’s interview with the two Flumen scientists Jana Holz and Martin Fritz for the taz. In it, the two talked about “how money, education and environmental awareness are connected” and “which clichés are true and which are not”.

The interview has been published in the weekly wochentaz and online here.

Additional Article

On the same topic Malene Gürgen also published the article “Alles eine Frage der Mentalität” (“It’s all a matter of mentality”) in the taz-newsletter.

Read this article here.

Invitation

We cordially invite you to the first Sociological Forest Symposium on 01.12.2023, 9:30 to 17:00, at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. With this symposium we would like to encourage a low-threshold exchange of sociologists and sociologically researching social scientists working in the field of forests and forestry. Among other things, but not exclusively, the focus will be on questions of forest-based bioeconomy, care, forest use and exploitation, relevant actors and institutions as well as questions of socio-ecological sustainability.

The focus of the event is on networking, exploring different methodological and theoretical perspectives and a specific sociological view on forests.

Two formats of contributions are planned:

a) the classic lecture format (15min + 10 min discussion) and

b) a pitch format (max. 3min pP, preferably with 1-2 slides, a flipchart or poster), in which you can present your research questions or project ideas.

Refreshments will be provided. The flumen project will provide the catering as well as the premises. Travel and possible accommodation costs have to be paid by yourself at this first meeting.

Please send us your registration (title, short abstract, proposed contribution and format or participation without own contribution) by 15.09.2023 (ronja.schroeder@uni-oldenburg.de).

We look forward to your feedback!

The Orga-Team

Jana Holz (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Institute of Sociology, flumen),

Ronja Mikoleit (Social Change Unit of the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg, Freiburg),

Anna Saave (Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics, BioMaterialities) and

Ronja Schröder (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Institute of Social Sciences, Social Theory Group)