This blog is the fourth in a series of five, each digesting and reflecting on a day at the Degrowth conference in Leipzig, 2nd – 6th September. You can read about Day 1 here, Day 2 here and Day 3here. Below is a summary of my experiences of Day 4 – Friday 5th September – Visions and strategies for transformation.
Upon returning from five fascinating, inspiring and fun days in Leipzig at the Fourth International Conference on Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity last week, I noticed – after some seriously needed rest and a couple of good nights sleep – that I had made 42 pages of notes. Those people who are lovers of light-hearted satirical science-fiction, like myself, may recognise the number 42 as the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything – at least according to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
The Festival is a meeting point, not only for groups and people who participate in solidarity and cooperative economy initiatives, but also for visitors who are looking for an alternative and sustainable way to live. It is a good opportunity for collectives to connect and share knowledge and for visitors to learn and implement new good practices.
"The city council expects to open at least 12 labs in the coming years. There are emerging community based initiatives like MADE, and private initiatives as Fab Café (brought from Tokyo and Taipei by MOB). We have been pushing hard to get the city council to support those community and private initiatives in order to build a richer ecosystem around digital fabrication, it seems that will work, right now there is a lot of collaboration being built, and it is hard not to fall into the dynamics of a “small” city like Barcelona, and move from competition to real collaboration, I think is a matter of time and will happen at FAB10 and the Mini Maker Faire, will bring different communities together and help to build the Fab City, which is not one-side vision of the city as a laboratory, but a complete ecosystem which includes also industry, universities, commerce and many more actors which could benefit and participate of it. The municipality is a big entity, and they have their vision of creating their very own spaces, which are being also called Ateneus de Fabricació (in a more local basis), my concern is the interpretations that the public sector can make of Fab Labs, we are try to work as close as possible and is working, but there are always risks.
What it's all about: http://goo.gl/jcX9C5 Increasing impact of existing projects and programs. Getting new initiatives off the ground and keeping them there. Building a collaborative stewardship ecosystem to better take care of physical, digital and community assets.
As host of the weekly C-Realm podcast, KMO holds a singular position, acting as facilitator for a wide range of perspectives on economics, consciousness, resource depletion, techno-utopianism, climate change, etc. KMO’s own evolving worldview combines all of the above into a very unique and nuanced analysis that informs the underlying, and not always immediately evident, C-Realm narrative.
CommonsFest was held for the second consecutive year in Heraklion, Crete on May 9th ,10th and 11th. In this celebration of collaboration, solidarity and sharing took part members from eco-communities, natural farmers, seed preservationists, cooperatives and solidarity economy productive ventures and associates, participants of free software and digital rights fighters, members of community-run open wireless networks, lawyers, sociologists and political economists, scientists and academics, social activists and ordinary citizens interested in the sustainable management of the Commons.
It’s probably too late for most of us to attend, but this Friday through Sunday, June 6-8,Pixelache Helsinki 2014 will host an international two-day trans-disciplinary event on “The Commons.”
Framing - The digitalisation and the informalisation of economies and jobs have brought about major challenges for workers and unions. While the new ICTs were to create new structures and cyber-works they also allowed the state and the capital to reorganize production, consumption, finance and politics alongside global production commodity networks. On the other hand since 2010 the social and emancipatory potential of part of the same technological developments is gained a large recognition. The workshop aims at a fruitful and solution focused discussion on the efficient and easy to learn ‘new tool kit’ and how to use it for labour’s renewal and emancipation. We want to explore some of the creative strategies and tactics that are built in the post 2008 period. What can be learned from the way social media used by grassroots? What the new experiences of digital (self-)organising do promise, especially the informal and precarious workers’? What are the core issues, contradiction ad main problems to tackle? We invite unionists, labour activists, organisers and researchers alike interested in reinventing labour and transnational solidarity for the 21th century.
On May 13-14, Transition US staff participated in the first annual SHARE Conference, joining 500+ entrepreneurs, investors, techies, government officials, and nonprofit leaders. SHARE, which took place in San Francisco was dedicated to exploring the sharing economy, and highlighted both the innovation and challenges within this field.
This session brought together a mix of experts involved in global internet governance policy spaces to help bring greater clarity around Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (Net Mundial) and where internet governance will go after it. This dynamic panel aimed to clarify misconceptions about the event, what's at stake, and what internet governance might look like in the next 20 years. It brought together academics, advocates, government, and the private sector for a dynamic conversation with the broader digital rights community.
Gordon Cook has been kind enough to transcript Michel Bauwens’ presentation at last year’s Border’s to Cross Conference in Amsterdam. We’ve also included the video at the end for good measure, (so you can see Michel being “invited” offstage for going over his allotted time).
The transition>>lab and the whole Thinkfarm(I’ve met at least twenty of them!) seemed to be at the 2014 Degrowth Conference in Leipzig. As a matter of fact, the Degrowth conference was a huge mix of activists, researchers, social entrepreneurs, transitioners, ecovillagers, etc. With 3000 participants (750 were international), this was a huge crowd with over 50 sessions running in parallel twice a day for 3 complete days!
This blog is the second in a series of five, each digesting and reflecting on a day at theDegrowth conference in Leipzig, 2nd – 6thSeptember. You can read about Day 1 here, and below is a summary of my experiences of Day 2 – Wednesday 2nd September – Facing the current crises: critique and resistance.
REScoop 20-20-20 in cooperation with Co-power and the European Union organises a conference on legislation and finance for people’s ownership of community renewable energy across Europe.
The SHARE conference may well mark the first moment that a critical mass of the U.S.‘s collaborative consumption community gathers in one place to, well, share.
There are different understandings of degrowth, depending on the country or context in which the issue is discussed. However, they all share the belief that a growth-based society cannot have a future. Despite all technological innovations and increased efficiency, social injustice and resource consumption are still on the rise. “Green growth” is an illusion.
Commoners from the CommonsFest and the P2P Lab, amongst many others, took part in the ”Commoners Unite” Camp 2014 organized by the Helsinki-based Pixelache. The three-day long unconference began with the two keynotes by Alain Ambrosi and Markus Schmidt on “Co-inventing the art of commoning” and on Bio-Commons respectively, held at the Helsinki University. Then the participants moved to the island of Vartiosaari where discussions and workshops would be taking place for the next two days. Our friend Dimitris Koukoulakis from the CommonsFest team reports:
How can we arrive at common decisions on what is to be valued? Do we value personal bonds or do we value anonymity? Do we value community or do we value individuality? Is there a way to bridge these apparent opposites or dissolve their inherent contradictions, or will they forever be in conflict? What do we value about ourselves? What do we value about others? What do we value in nature, in work, in leisure? And how can we embed these values — both moral and economic — in the very money-form? Ultimately, if we are talking about creating a radically different society, the question of value will have to somehow be detached from money.
When I received an invitation to attend the Economics and the Commons conference (Berlin, 2013), I was delighted. The commons is alive in me. It is a new/old paradigm that reconnects with, and brings innovative thinking to, the social and ecological issues important to our collective well-being. I was certain that if ever a conference exemplified cutting-edge group processes, this would be it.
Pixelache Helsinki 2014 will be an international 2-day trans-disciplinary event focusing on the theme of “The Commons”, including bio-, urban culture and knowledge commons topics. Adding a new island to its logbook after Suomenlinna (2011) and Naissaar (2013), Camp Pixelache will take up residence in Vartiosaari, a nature island surrounded by eastern suburbs of Helsinki, during 6-8th June 2014.
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