Alt Shift 2024 is all about building alliances!
This year, Alt Shift is all about BUILDING ALLIANCES. We're exploring how we can effectively support each other to turn the word "solidarity" into meaningful action. Through roundtables and creative processes, we'll listen to the demands of sister movements, understand each other’s needs, and reflect on how degrowth can be a true ally.
Why Building Alliances?
Amplifying our voices: Aligning with other movements amplifies our collective struggles and demands, applying more pressure on those in power. Degrowth is not just about academic discourse; it's about connecting with the tangible realities of social and environmental struggles.
Learning together: To tackle complex challenges, we need diverse perspectives and solutions. By learning from other movements’ strategies and practices, we can shift from mere thinking to actionable change. This also means rethinking our frameworks and incorporating alternative epistemologies.
Avoiding Self-Referential Loops: Degrowth must avoid becoming a self-referential movement isolated in the Global North. It’s crucial to integrate the wider framework of global justice. Without this, degrowth risks becoming the next imperialist framework imposed on the global economy.
Positioning Degrowth in the Ecology of Movements: We envision a decentralized network, like the one of a mycelium, where degrowth is one of many connectors. Through reciprocal enrichment, we can channel each other’s demands and inform our strategies. Positioning degrowth within this broader ecosystem is essential.
To do this, we must reflect on degrowth’s positionality. Degrowth values are deeply rooted in feminism, socialism, anti-oppression, disability, antiwar, and decolonial movements, among others. Honoring these connections and critically analyzing our positionality is vital to our integrity and success.
Next to our good old degrowthers, we explicitly welcome friends and allies from other eco socialist and social justice movements such as the climate justice movement, feminist abolitionism, queer and trans movements, migrant solidarity and black and indigenous rights movements. We want to create a space to learn from each other and support our connected struggles.