LESSA Journal of Degrowth in Scotland Issue 2 | Spring 2021

LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 1 CONTENTS TAILOR MADE WELCOME DEGROWTH by Alis le May TO LESS p4 FIRST AS TRAGEDY, then as the natural sense of hope this instills farce. Fish in marine habitats off in the heart. Migratory birds and the coast of our corner of the North fish have left their winter haunts THE Atlantic are “British and happier for and arrived back at UK shores. Our ANTI-D’OH! it”1 after Brexit, according to Jacob annual reminder that freedom of Rees-Moog. Youth unrest ablaze movement is not just a perk that was by Pat Kane in Northern Ireland as lockdown temporarily bestowed upon us as p8 ennui meets marginalisation and a by-product of being a member predictable Brexit realpolitik. state of a single market. interview Mandatory, socially constructed Freedom of movement is with activist, CO-HOUSING royal mourning across the UK as the default mode of all life author and by Sarah Glynn hauntology meets hyperreal soft forms, us included – it’s academic p12 authoritarianism. how evolution itself unfolded. Andrea Vetter Meanwhile, the most symbolic Global freedom of movement on degrowth image from this period remains that is also a core demand of the principles by of a gigantic stuck container ship degrowth movement.2 Svenja Meyerricks. THE CARRYING blocking one of the world’s most In LESS’s first issue in We also have STREAM important trade arteries, laying bare 2021, we look at degrowth a collaborative essay the fragile imbalance of our global in the context of Brexit from the Highlands by Ainslie Roddick, Cáit O’Neill supply chains. All this during a and the pandemic, with contributions from McCullagh, Charlotte Mountford, Scottish election cycle in which little and share some Ainslie Roddick, Cáit Fadzai Mwakutuya, Jo Rodgers, of substance appears to be proposed modest proposals O'Neill McCullagh, Charlotte Kirsten Body, Lauren Pyott, Lisa in response to the metacrisis that to intervene Mountford, Fadzai Mwakutuya, MacDonald, Mairi McFadyen, threatens the basis of life. and build Jo Rodgers, Kirsten Body, Philomena de Lima and Raghnaid A hostile environment that has new Lauren Pyott, Lisa MacDonald, Sandilands been around long before Brexit lifeways that Mairi McFadyen, Philomena de p14 was on the horizon seems to have are within our power. Lima and Raghnaid Sandilands. permeated daily life for many of us. As the institutions We are also delighted to publish The real danger is when this state of and public sentiment of a degraded Sarah Glynn on cohousing and exception seems to feel normal, and United Kingdom cultivate a ecology, Pat Kane imagining a SCOTLAND alternatives to seem fanciful. We protectionist and insular retreat spot-capitalist future, Alis Le May QUO VADIS? need to imagine new worlds while from the world, it’s more important on slow-fashion and restoration we can. than ever to build political of local craft skills and poetry on Joachim Spangenberg It is one of those strange twists solidarity, intellectual networks, borders between the global north p20 of fate that almost at the exact and cultural connections across and global south from Juana point in time when Brexit – and Europe. In that spirit, this issue Adcock. We also feature art work CONTRIBUTORS and arts group; facilitating drawing for cooperative, which aims to facilitate currently building a directory of makers degrowth, sufficiency, sustainable blue passports – finally arrived, of LESS has contributions from by Pearse O'Halloran, Tarneem Al STORY OF wellbeing. Creates designs for poetry ecosocial transitions by promoting in Glasgow, to make it easier for Glasgow consumption, biodiversity conservation, freedom of movement stopped Joachim Spangenberg (Vice Mousawi, Stewart Bremner and JUANA ADCOCK is a poet and translator. books, posters and exhibitions - notably practices, training and research. He citizens to access locally made clothing. ecosystem services and their valuation. almost completely for UK citizens, President, Sustainable Europe Fadzai Mwakutuya. STEEL AND She has published Manca (Argonautica, at Kelvingrove Museum’s cultural also works at FUHEM as coordinator of alislemay.com, decentprojects.com ANDREA VETTER is an academic, halted by a mutant virus strain, the Research Institute and Chair THE LETTER M 2019), which explores the anatomy of survival gallery, and for a research ecosocial education. He participates FADZAI MWAKUTUYA, from Zimbabwe activist and author. She currently holds impact of which was exacerbated by of BUND/Friends of the Earth Notes Juana Adcock violence in the Mexican drug war, and project at University of Glasgow. actively in initiatives for justice and and based in Westeross, is an artist a professorship at the University of Fine incompetent government handling Germany), a translation of work by 1 theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/ p26 Split (Blue Diode Press, 2019) which was STEWART BREMNER is a graphic resilience. He authored and co-authored who makes thought provoking socially Arts in Braunschweig and also works westminster-news/jacob-rees-mogg-scottish- of the pandemic. Adrián Almazán and Luis González fishermen-brexit-troubles-6904448 a Poetry Book Society Choice and was designer, illustrator and artist with several books on social ecology, engaged artwork under the name at the Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, a As we write this, we’re past the Reyes (Between limit and desire: 2 degrowth.info/en/2020/01/book-review- included in the Guardian’s Best Poetry of over twenty years experience. He is the including En la espiral de la energía (In Afro Art Lab. She is also a member of laboratory for new economic ideas. With vernal equinox and warmth and strategic directions in the collapse degrowth-postwachstum-a-german- 2019. Adrián Almazán holds a doctorate owner of indy-prints.com. You might the Spiral of Energy). the Repository of the Undercommons Matthias Schmelzer, she co-authored light are returning to Scotland, with of industrial civilisation) and an introduction-to-degrowth/ BETWEEN in Philosophy and also completed a remember him from the art he made PAT KANE is a writer, musician, creative (RotU), a curator/artist residency borne the book Degrowth/Postwachstum LIMIT AND Masters in Philosophical Critique and during the indyref. stewartbremner.co.uk consultant, activist, futurist and father. out of Enough!. fadzaimwakutuya.co.uk Degrowth/Postwachstum zur Einführung, Reasoning. He alternated his scientific SARAH GLYNN is an activist, an He is author of The Play Ethic, co-initiator PEARSE O’HALLORAN is an independent (Junius-Verlag 2019). LESS IS A JOURNAL on degrowth, radical sufficiency extinction, inequality, racism and the far right, and the DESIRE formation with activism in different architect, and an academic. She has of The Alternative UK, a board member Graphic Designer and Illustrator AINSLIE RODDICK, and decolonisation in Scotland. interconnected oppressive and extractivist logic and by Adrián Almazán and Luis collectives. He participated in the published books and articles on housing of Common Weal, and has been a left/ working in the Outer Hebrides. CÁIT O’NEILL MCCULLAGH, LESS questions and challenges dominant narratives mechanisms that feed all of those. González Reyes editorial collective Ediciones de Salmón. and on the political mobilisation of green Scots indy campaigner for 30 pearseohalloran.com CHARLOTTE MOUNTFORD, about what economic progress means in Scotland, We invite a combination of thoroughly researched p28 More recently, he has been active with immigrant communities. She has years. Pat is currently writing a book DR. JOACHIM H. SPANGENBERG was FADZAI MWAKUTUYA, JO RODGERS, and sketches out alternative visions. The focus is on material, opinion pieces, poetry and art work. Ecologistas en Acción and with the campaigned for tenants’ rights and for on the relationships between human research coordinator at the Sustainable KIRSTEN BODY, LAUREN PYOTT, collective and democratic solutions to sustaining Contributions are invited from those with lived collective La Torna. Since September solidarity with Palestinians, and played a sciences, creativity and politics. He is still Europe Research Institute SERI Germany LISA MACDONALD, MAIRI MCFADYEN, livelihoods that meet people’s needs while rising knowledge in these areas, researchers, poets, creative 2020, he is professor of Philosophy in the leading role in establishing and running one half of the 80s pop group Hue And in Cologne. He currently spends most PHILOMENA DE LIMA and to the threats of climate change, ecocide and mass writers and artists. ON DEGROWTH University of Deusto (Bilbao). the Scottish Unemployed Workers’ Cry. patkane.global of his working time as Chair of the RAGHNAID SANDILANDS AND AN TARNEEM AL MOUSAWI is a graphic Network. She has been a practising ALIS LE MAY is a bespoke designer and Scientific Committee of BUND/Friends of are a ‘rurally syndicated’ gathering of designer, illustrator and mama of two architect and a university lecturer, and maker and co-founder of Decent Projects the Earth Germany, and as member of women – artists, researchers, educators, ECONOMY tots; learning to illustrate for children currently works for the Kurdish freedom C.I.C – a social enterprise which explores the Scientific Committee of the European producers, programmers, practitioners – LESS is produced by the Enough! Collective. Find out more at enough.scot or @enoughscot. Contact us on [email protected]. All content © 2020 their OF CARE is her current passion. Inspired by movement. sarahglynn.net the potential of sewing for improving Environment Agency. He works on each living and working in communities respective authors. All work published in LESS is licensed as creative commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 – creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) beautiful crafts and her arabic heritage. LUIS GONZÁLEZ REYES is a member of individual well-being and fostering new sustainable development strategies, from Loch Ness to Caithness, Ullapool to and can be freely reproduced and amended for non-commercial purposes. Cover and above left illlustration by Pearse O’Halloran. by Svenja Meyerricks Co-founder of Seed of Thought poetry Ecologistas en Acción and of the Garúa communities. Decent Projects C.I.C. is limiting resource consumption, the Isle of Skye. Design and illustration above by Stewart Bremner. p 32

2 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 3 Imagine how a revitalised, locally made clothing TAILOR MADE economy would create meaningful employment, enrich communities and challenge toxic mindsets about DEGROWTH how we view ourselves and our clothes. By Alis le May. HE FASHION INDUSTRY dreams of wedding dresses, or the global fashion industry will produce associations) and they lack an is among the most polluting perfect summer blouse. They too over 100 billion garments this year3. incentive to seize the attention of industries on the planet. It is form relationships; the exchange This is an incredibly hard figure to whole nations with large campaigns. fraught with ethical atrocities, of money is necessary, but it does visualise. It would be unlikely to It is my belief that a fashion industry inherently resource-hungry not corrode the connection. There see those numbers replicated in a constituted from thousands of Tand, some might claim, entirely exists a respect for learned craft global industry formed of localised small and micro businesses, would unnecessary – in utilitarian terms and design talent, for listening and clothing economies, and powered create a very different culture of we have produced enough clothing for creativity. There is something by individuals and small teams of consumption. and textiles to meet the needs of our special, and ultimately something makers. The fantastic thing about In our current context, where global population for generations. deeply human here. degrowth (inherent in switching there exists an urgent need for Nevertheless, we remain unsated Now imagine twenty-one to a localised economy) is that you reducing material consumption, the and, even in the face of a global shirtmakers, twenty-one milliners can gather support for rebuilding inherent production limitations of economic recession (combined (hat makers) and five shoemakers, a diverse, local marketplace from local brands and makers becomes with a growing awareness of the all building those relationships, a much broader section of the their strength. This is absolutely the imminent, terrifying consequences honing their crafts, and existing in population than those who might case with small, localised fashion of overconsumption), it is predicted this diverse marketplace of locally typically engage with critiques brands (producing limited runs of that this year we will still produce made clothing. And the craftspeople of capitalism – and without ever ‘ready-to-wear’ collections). over 100 billion garments.1 of this great, diverse, creative city mentioning the term “degrowth”. Taking this further, in terms of It seems like a kind of madness, are not hidden out of sight in In the UK alone it is estimated limiting unnecessary consumption a collective hysteria so deeply obscure back-lanes or industrial that the fashion industry spends and changing buying habits, entrenched and on such a scale that zones- they are in the heart of £241 million on advertising4. With some of the most interesting (and it almost forbids confrontation. But bustling city life, with visible shop increasingly powerful tactics, often overlooked) potential lies in the future of our species demands fronts on high streets for all the facilitated by social media platforms bespoke. A bespoke garment sits that we change; the unacceptable population to see, know, and feel and the cultures that have emerged outside the mainstream fashion exploitation of garment workers that good things are made here. from them, a growth-focused industry, is not subject to trends demands that we change; the This is not a utopia or a dream fashion industry is in a better and does not require an advertising current levels of pollution in our that I am describing, neither is position than ever to convince us to campaign. It is a carefully rivers, our oceans and our soil it London’s Mayfair (one of the buy, dispose, repeat. A small brand considered purchase, partly due to demand that we change. last great remaining districts in Dundee making t-shirts, or a the expense involved in purchasing This article aims to illustrate how of craftspeople in the United tailor in Edinburgh making bespoke it, but for deeper reasons too – it a revitalised, locally made clothing Kingdom). What I am describing is suits, might employ the occasional requires consideration, thought, economy is a degrowth approach the city of Glasgow in 19682, a city use of online adverts, or use social discussion and collaboration that would create meaningful with a population similar in size to media platforms to promote their between customer and maker. employment, enrich communities today’s, where poverty was rife – business. Their powers of persuasion Commissioning a bespoke garment and challenge toxic mindsets about yet it supported a local industry of however, and ability to purchase is a ‘high friction’ transaction; how we view ourselves, each other skilled craftspeople. If population space in the ‘attention economy’, fabric must be chosen, shape and the clothing we inhabit. and wealth are any indicators, pale in comparison to big brands, decided upon, number of pockets the city should be able to support (particularly those with high-status agreed etc. and that is before the IMAGINE A CITY, and in this a visible local clothing industry making can even begin, with city are thirty bespoke tailors, now, so why not make clothes in some, more complex bespoke making suits and coats for their Glasgow? Why not make clothes “…the craftspeople garments requiring six or more clients. The tailors have known and locally in Scotland? Why not grow months to create. It requires real provided service to their clients for new (and support existing) locally of this great, diverse, consideration and it also requires decades. They know about each made clothing economies around creative city are not patience, two practices the ‘low other’s families, hobbies, hopes and the globe? I believe that looking to friction’ experience of shopping disappointments. Their lives are our past is more than an exercise hidden out of sight ready-to-wear online would have us interconnected – tailor and client, in bittersweet nostalgia, but instead avoid and ultimately forget how to friend and neighbour, citizens could help inform a blueprint for a in obscure back- exercise. of a shared place. Now imagine sustainable future. The term ‘bespoke’ has become twenty-three dressmakers, creating A locally made clothing economy lanes or industrial synonymous with tailoring, in outfits for their clients in every is by nature a degrowth economy; zones- they are in particular luxury tailoring, but, colour of the rainbow, realising recent research estimates that the when I write ‘bespoke’, I am not >> the heart of bustling city life, with visible shop fronts on high streets”

Right: High heels discard as the women join in the high jinks at the Locarno in Glasgow. 27th September 1962. Credit: Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock Photo

LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 5 “…when you are working with or selling directly to a customer, there just referring to three-piece formal at a personal level, it can be easier the making process, you are much timeless pieces and offers a mending a greater impact than simply leaving conglomerate that includes Zara, forms a human important that a broad range suits. It is defined as ‘made for a to comprehend. How many of us more invested in your garments service to make sure the garment a bad review; they can walk into your Bershka and Massimo Dutti) is connection, a sense of tastes are catered for by local particular customer or user’ and so, have ever felt overwhelmed at the because you have been a part of has as long a life as possible. This shop or visit your studio and demand unlikely to lose sleep when your makers – for real change, this today, a bespoke clothing economy number of possessions we have the hours it took to create them. requires skill, but it also requires a repair or refund in person. There is Zara t-shirt starts to fall apart or of obligation – cannot be something solely for the (as part of a wider, local clothing (be that clothing or something It would be a very unusual set of imagination – seeing waste as an accountability, a necessary aspect of when your jeans zip has broken after sustainability-conscious middle marketplace) would more likely else) and, in a fit of ‘decluttering’, circumstances that would cause opportunity, rather than a problem. any healthy community. two wears and, regardless of how that person has classes. We need to bring along manifest in bespoke jeans, bespoke condemned bags of unwanted items an independent designer to burn Exploring the problem of waste Designers who have a role in the he might feel about either of these as many people as possible and sweatshirts, bespoke t-shirts and to the local charity shop or, in more a collection they had spent several imaginatively – how long might a city production of their collections will see things, you cannot access him. As the chosen you to everybody needs to feel welcome bespoke casual dresses. In fact, any desperate moments, the bin. If we months creating. I still have pieces I such as Glasgow be able to sustain a the value in making something well writer Matthew Crawford says, “it’s on the journey. One way to do this item of clothing you are wearing are to tangibly tackle the problem of made from when I was first learning diverse, creative clothing economy if for its own sake (the philosophy of a this sense that there’s no one you can make something, would be to reinstate local business right now could be bespoke. textile waste, we must acknowledge how to sew (over a decade ago), and all materials had to be sourced with craftsman7) and, with many designers grab hold of by the lapels and hold something that will in the heart of city centres. Why In the last 100 years, societies that responsibility exists with, and I expect that I will still have those city limits? Given the huge number running ‘own name’ labels, who to account… that is the definition shouldn’t a visit to Glasgow’s famous across the globe have challenged beyond, global brands. We too have pieces in ten years’ time. of garments languishing in charity would want their name on a poorly of tyranny: power that is not touch their skin, ‘style mile’ on Buchanan Street bring every kind of clothing rule and an impact – currently it is estimated A strong local clothing economy shops, clothing bins, textile recycling made garment? Moreover, when you accountable… and is not operating you into contact with local fashion taboo, whilst becoming gradually that the global population sends is likely to be a connected and social centres and even our own wardrobes, are working with or selling directly with your best interests at heart”.8 keep them warm, brands, tailors and dressmakers? entrenched in thinking that clothing the equivalent of a rubbish truck of network, able to share resources I doubt that designers would find to a customer, there forms a human You can complain at your local Why has it become the norm that must come from brands, not clothing to landfill every second6. and facilities to reduce waste and themselves too limited if they only connection, a sense of obligation – Zara shop, write a post on Instagram, change the way this territory belongs to global fellow citizens. If people were able When we hear statistics about production costs for all. Taking an sourced their textiles locally – and, if that person has chosen you to make even post the faulty garment back they feel about brands and conglomerates only? to re-engage with the concept of tonnage of textile waste, we can start example from my own practice; they did, might it be worth exploring something, something that will touch in protest- but are any of these Brands who are happy to remove buying bespoke, the possibilities to feel its burden build upon our prior to the pandemic, most of the value of this limitation? And their skin, keep them warm, change tactics likely to raise production and themselves” themselves when the going-gets- for true individual expression backs, to the point where we feel my commissions were wedding might we start to question the notion the way they feel about themselves. material standards at Zara? A local tough, leaving unemployment and and creativity reach new heights. paralysed, incapable of meaningful dresses or men’s suits – traditional that creative endeavour should never Amancio Ortega, billionaire clothing economy has to, and wants the lowest incomes, even to meet desolate department stores behind In this way, a degrowth clothing action. One of the many exciting styles for formal occasions – and be limited, no matter the costs to our and owner of Inditex (a fashion to, produce high quality clothing – it their basic practical clothing needs. them. These cities, these spaces, do economy is not about austerity and things about a revitalised, locally these clients were not interested environment? Like most cities, we is essential to its survival, justifying The city of Glasgow has some of not belong to global brands – they reducing individual freedoms; it made clothing economy is that it in experimenting with interesting have fantastic local textile resources; Notes the necessary higher price points. the highest levels of deprivation belong to us, the citizens. is about increasing creativity and gives us tools to not only reduce the seam placement that could we may not be able to grow cotton in 1 Common Objective. 2021. Volume and Furthermore, making things well is in Western Europe and, whilst At the beginning of this article Consumption: How Much Does The World empowering self-expression in a amount of waste we produce, but minimise waste. Why should they Scotland, but we certainly have a lot Buy?; commonobjective.co/article/volume- fundamental to the philosophy shared secondhand clothing can play a I asked you to imagine a city, now way that the current mainstream also to begin to see “waste” in an be? Even with the most economical of cotton right here already to work and-consumption-how-much-does-the-world- by most people who make their own part here, we know that there exists I want you to imagine your city (or fashion industry does not allow. entirely different way. lay plan (the way pattern pieces are with. Truly imaginative designers can buy products. By making things that real, understandable stigmas and closest city, wherever that might Wasteful and resource hungry Firstly, a fashion industry nestled together for cutting, kind of work with what they have in front of 2 1968. Kelly’s Directory of Glasgow, 1968. last and being locally accessible to shame around wearing secondhand. be). Imagine all the shops, vacated London: London, Kelly’s Directories Ltd is the true state of the fashion composed of small brands and like Tetris), I always produce small them, and we have so much. 3 Common Objective. 2021. Volume and offer repairs, a locally made clothing We must acknowledge that and through lockdown and recession, industry today. Entirely preventable makers would not have the waste pieces that will very rarely be The fast fashion culture Consumption: How Much Does The World economy reduces waste, builds be hopeful that revitalising a local now populated with a diverse range waste occurs at every stage of its manufacturing capability to create of use to me. In a connected, diverse we currently live in inevitably Buy?; commonobjective.co/article/volume- relationships and restores customer clothing economy will just be one of local makers. Imagine walking and-consumption-how-much-does-the-world- production, sale and use. Some anywhere near the same levels of local clothing economy, I would compromises quality to deliver at buy respect and appreciation for ‘a job well part of revitalising cities more past a window, previously boarded waste is difficult to prevent; waste that we are witnessing right know exactly who those scraps such a pace. Of course, there have 4 Notjustalabel.com. 2021. The Fashion done’; no global brand can offer this. broadly, and that by investing in up, lit bright and displaying a for example, in order to avoid now. It is also unlikely that smaller would be useful to; in this way one always been varying levels of quality Advertising Campaign: Big Business & Brand But what about those who the local makers, more jobs and garment that was carefully made producing waste fabric offcuts businesses would ever need or want designers’ trash becomes another throughout the history of clothing Identity; notjustalabel.com/editorial/fashion- cannot afford to participate in a better outcomes will be generated and made there – you may even advertising-campaign-big-business-brand- during production, garments would to burn or bury unsold garments. designers’ treasure, waste and costs production, but it is only in the last identity locally made clothing economy? The for the wider population. This is not be able to see the designer at work need to be designed using a zero- When you are directly connected to are reduced for both parties, and a 50 or 60 years that we have seen the 5 Pinnock, O., 2021. No One In Fashion Is reality is that locally made clothing ‘trickle-down’ economics as we have towards the back of the shop. waste approach and this can be culture of reciprocity would emerge. prevalence of planned obsolescence Surprised Burberry Burnt £28 Million cannot and should not compete witnessed it, which in the words of Imagine a long-ignored, faded Of Stock. Forbes, forbes.com/sites/ challenging (but not impossible) for Independent designers and grow in the fashion industry. The big oliviapinnock/2018/07/20/no-one-in-fashion- with the likes of Primark and Jason Hickel has been ‘barely even department store, re-painted and “How many of 9 mainstream brands to implement. makers are much more agile than brands do not expect you to wear is-surprised-burberry-burnt-28-million-of- BooHoo – in rebuilding a locally a vapour’ , this is local investment re-populated with local businesses. The mass burning or burying of us have ever felt global brands; they can quickly their garments more than eight to ten stock/?sh=1f29269d4793 made industry, we do not want to with local beneficiaries. The fact Imagine visiting other cities and unsold garments to protect brand make use of pre- and post-consumer times, so why take the extra time in 6 Beall, A., 2021. Why clothes are so copy the environmental or human that people cannot afford to buy discovering that city’s local talent hard to recycle. BBC, bbc.com/future/ identity is a practice that is hard overwhelmed at waste whenever opportunities production to make them last three article/20200710-why-clothes-are-so-hard-to- exploitation of the global fashion a locally made £17 t-shirt (versus and unique fashion scene – not a to defend. Burberry was famously present themselves or even make it a hundred washes? A local clothing recycle industry. This requires a shift in a £2 equivalent at Primark) is an carbon copy of global brand after outed for this practice5 but they are the number of central part of their business model. economy cannot exist in this manner. 7 Sennett, R., 2009. The craftsman. London: thinking about the numbers of new indicator of poverty caused by an global brand. If local authorities only one of the many companies In fact, they are already leading the Local businesses depend on customer Penguin Books. clothes we can purchase per year. economy that needs to be urgently and government wanted to make possessions we 8 EconTalk, 2021. Matthew Crawford on Why adopting this strategy for a problem way in this. Taking an example from loyalty, online reviews, and word- We Drive. EconTalk podcast, econtalk.org/ For a lot of people, buying locally addressed politically, not through this happen, they absolutely could, which is simply ‘just having too have and, in a fit Glasgow, upcycling brand ReJean of-mouth to maintain their clients. matthew-crawford-on-why-we-drive/ is possible but it will mean buying independent makers being paid less. they could certainly make a start much stuff’. This story provoked Denim repurposes deadstock Furthermore, a disgruntled customer 9 Hickel, J., 2021. Less is More. London: less. In the context of Scotland, this In the transition to a thriving – it just takes the will, and a bit of Random House UK. public outrage but, if we picture it of ‘decluttering’, denim and preloved jeans into new, in a local clothing economy can have may not be possible for those on local clothing economy, it is imagination. n condemned bags of unwanted items to the local charity shop or, in more desperate moments, the bin.”

6 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 7 enemies – so we can readily become entranced they achieve stellar status by virtue of their sheer by screens and interaction designs, which integrity (Greta Thunberg’s moral intensity about THE consciously and deliberately game those instincts the climate crisis the most recent example). Those securing our constant attention. of us who are progressive activists are inspired by To survive, we sort ourselves into in-groups such people, and hope to ignite their flame inside and out-groups, and develop attachments to kin us, and in those we hope to mobilise. ANTI- (whether biological or fictive) – so we moderns And in our urgency, most of us won’t be are all-too-susceptible to status wars, identity stopped from trying to summon up the better politics/marketing, and even tribalism by means angels of our nature, by a crabbed, self-subverting of polarisation.2 mantra about the evolved inevitability of our D’OH! We have an “aversion to loss” more than we have species-mediocrity. Yet the human science of an “attraction to gain”, rooted in our early hominid this probably does have to be grappled with, Mapping the emotional systems insecurities about storing and retaining resources. and countered, rather than just ignored. If only Yet at the same time we are also afflicted with because it unnecessarily induces despair and that could drive us to an ecological “optimism bias”: we routinely overestimate our own fatalism about how much humans can transform chances of success, and the impact of our own skills their own understandings and motivations.7 civilisation by Pat Kane and talents, in any challenging situation – again, a If we are creatures of cognitive surplus, as capacity we apparently developed as we adapted to much as of cognitive limits, then it is possible E HEAR A lot from behavioural our harsh environments. that we might respond to (say) an appeal to science and nudge theory about how It’s amazing. How do these broken, misfiring build a complex “ecological civilisation” (to susceptible humans are to addictive and creatures even make their way to the bus stop use Jeremy Lent’s term)8. In such a civilisation, self-destructive behaviour – our inner each morning?3 we are (at worst) masters of our evolved and “Homer Simpson”, short-termist, thrill- Scepticism about the research basis of “nudge” visceral reactions to the world. And at best we Wobsessed and anxious about status. thinking is justified. Many of its tests have been are mindful self-shapers and systemic adepts, If this was the only account of evolved human enacted on early twenties graduates and post- applying our ingenuity to the pursuit of a planet- nature going, then we’d be looking at our eternal graduates on Western university campuses, friendly common life. vulnerability to consumerism and advertising, who one could conceivably imagine to be more As far as my reading in the last 20 years can with all the dire consequences for material impulsive and individualistic in their actions tell me, there is more than enough evidence in throughput this implies. than in many other cultures.4 the human sciences to support our capacity for But what if there are a range of contending Building a case for “liberal paternalism”, this kind of fully-awake, complex living. But we frameworks of human emotion and cognition in the words of Sunstein and Thaler – where need to start arranging it all into a new map – – ones which emphasis the active power of psychologically-informed politicians, managers one that can fully contend with the depressing imagination; or expand the repertoire of (and and administrators “architect the choices” of overview of the nudgers. the interaction between) triggerable and visceral these poor Homers, steering them away from The first point of intervention would be to drives; or point towards ways whereby we can “predictably irrational” self-harms — is easier widen the “dashboard” of primary emotions increase our non-reactivity, mindfulness and if the human evidence for it is so specific (eg that are understood as triggering our most need for meaning? impatient, not fully mature young students). “predictably irrational” responses. Maybe we’re more like Lisa Simpson than By the same means, of course, these creatures In the Scottish independence movement, Homer? And maybe this can also provide a can also be steered towards self-harm. The the spectre of “Project Fear” – the name the No neurophysiological basis for constructing a perpetual offer of cut-price chocolates at the side gave to their scaremongering referendum robust and lasting post-consumerist identity? supermarket counter is an example of nudge campaign in 2012-2014 – contains one of the key thinking that aims to exploit our “cognitive “negative” emotions that can be seen to deeply “D’oh!” This is Homer Simpson’s famous response biases”. It associates spending at the counter with drive human (and indeed mammalian) existence. to yet another failure to put his rationality ahead a cash saving on a sugar high, wiring a retail Yet there are potential Projects also for both of his appetites and anxieties. But it’s also the behaviour in with our ancient susceptibility.5 Anger and Panic/Sadness (this latter emotion noise you hear behind so much of what has In terms of the urgency of climate crisis – rooted in anxiety around separation, aloneness become known as “nudge theory”1, as it observes where a consumerism that plays on and to these and abandonment. Does that ring a bell?). us poor simians bumping into the sharp edges of cognitive and physiological biases keeps material This is one end of the “primary emotions” a challenging modern world that, somehow and throughput constantly on the increase, as we’re dashboard as laid out by the late Jaak Panksepp, mysteriously, we managed to create. triggered to keep impulse buying – the nudgers’ founder of what’s called “affective neuroscience” Officially known as “behavioural economics”, map of evolved (and limited) human nature or AN (which distinguishes itself from cognitive nudge theory is so-called because it aims to steer would seem to bring us grim news. neuroscience (CN) in its emphasis on how we bemused, still-paleolithic creatures around If indeed we are these lost, stumbling, our ancestral emotions deeply determine our our own social and economic landscape, gently savannah-era creatures, stranded paleolithics consciousness).9 pushing us away from self-destructive behaviours endlessly susceptible to the sparkles and What is exciting about Panksepp and AN is that we can’t help perpetrating. enticements of consumer society and political that the dashboard extends towards other >> Why can’t we help it? Because beneath our messaging, then all we can hope for is that our elaborate and intricate worlds of code, law, rulers and steerers – who possess this powerful culture and institutions, say the nudgers, we map of human weakness – don’t jerk us around “But what if we were are essentially hunter-gatherers, whose survival too much. And if/when they do, they do it in the Lisa Simpson, as drives persist into the complex present, and lead right direction. Because we, the people, are poor us astray. forked Homer Simpsons, waiting to be nudged much as Homer? That Indeed, it’s worse than that: we have figured towards the light.6 our, via advertising and marketing (whether is, what if we were commercial or political), how to lead ourselves BUT WHAT IF we were Lisa Simpson, as astray. Some classic examples follow. We have an much as Homer? That is, what if we were expressive, constructive, ancient appetite for sweet and sucrose-intense expressive, constructive, artistic, idealistic, self- artistic, idealistic, self- foodstuffs – so we can be easily led down the path programming, ethically ambitious? to over-consumption of junk and processed foods. Well, we know this to be the case – we know programming, ethically Our attention flickered around our old these people in our own lives, we can find them in savannah landscapes, looking for predators or the media if we look hard enough, and sometimes ambitious?”

8 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 9 primary emotions – and these are as positive might begin to orchestrate these three emotional are “pulled” towards them, and they contend and for many different “Projects”. (There is a the neuroscience of emotions and cognition. and generative as the others are negative and systems in service of an ecological civilisation – powerfully within us. (To my mind, this is a “As far as my reading seventh primary and visceral emotion in the I think it’s important that humans realise how defensive. Panksepp titles them Care, Play and particularly if we attend to Panksepp’s particular different framing of emotion than that of the in the last 20 years can Panksepp system, Lust, which shouldn’t go homologous they are with other mammals, Seeking/Curiosity (he even fully CAPITALISES definitions. What’s also important to note is nudgers, who delight in how our noble and without saying – but perhaps needs another and even organisms beyond that. It feels like a them, to emphasize their primacy in organisms, that AN believes these are “visceral” emotions rational intentions are endlessly subverted by our tell me, there is more than essay to integrate into our picture, as it can either biological connection, a shared fate, which might but I won’t follow that rule here). – meaning that to the human experiencing evolved inheritance. Instead, these are emotions integrate or unravel those in its grip). be transforming if dwelt upon deeply enough. It shouldn’t be hard to imagine how one them, they are near involuntary reactions: we understood more operatically, as a profound and enough evidence in the The science of emotions, as explored by other But I also appreciate that we are also radically figures like Antonio Damasio, often connect this constructionist animals – with extraordinary human sciences to support desire to the need for “homeostasis” in organisms capacities for self-reflection, conceptualisation, our capacity for this – a term you may know as referring to self- fabulation. We will need all those imaginative balancing and self-correction (like the homeostat powers, rethinking not just technology but kind of fully-awake, regulating the heating in your house). Damasio styles and ways of life, if we are to get out prefers the term “homeodynamics”. This is the of the 2020s alive. complex living.” gentle flourishing which is the ideal state for At least, let’s say that there’s more to us, and our a healthy organism – keeping enough energy evolved resources, than Homer Economicus. n turbulent motivational landscape, the primal resources in reserve, to fuel a curiosity about drama of our lives). your environment.11 Pat Kane is a writer, musician, activist, consultant Care – essentially, maternal and paternal When connected to Play, and particularly and futurist (www.patkane.global). His book protection and development of offspring, when it happens in the super-playful human The Play Ethic was published in 2004, and he is community members, or any other entities animal, this Seeking/Curiosity is the drive currently completing a follow-up. requiring nurturance and support – seems behind the elaborate structures and rules of our obviously useful. Environmental discourse is civilisations. Of course, all of these emotional Notes powerful when it invokes Mother Earth or Gaia; systems fuel the more self-conscious, cognitive 1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory 2 ‘This Is Your Brain on Nationalism: The Biology of Us and and the concept of the Anthropocene implies a and imaginative parts of our minds, which grow Them’, Robert Sapolsky, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2019, story in which we are responsible for the fate of the cultures that are between us. We can imagine foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-02-12/your-brain-nationalism the blue planet. To care for an entity is not to be (and remember) civilisations that are (and were) 3 See this comprehensive list of “cognitive biases” en.wikipedia.org/ transactional with it, or to have one’s emotions founded on the visceral triggering of Fear, Anger wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases 4 “Nudge theory is a poor substitute for hard science in matters subverted by individualism or ego. and Panic/Sadness. of life or death”, Sonia Sodha, The Guardian, 26 April 2020, Yet we can amplify the power of Care with Yet I am strongly suggesting that affective theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/26/nudge-theory- the power of Play, as an emotional system. neuroscience should give activists the confidence is-a-poor-substitute-for-science-in-matters-of-life-or-death- coronavirus Care provides the human organism with the to identify, and then to cultivate, the more 5 “Nudging at the checkout counter – A longitudinal study of the experience of being at home in, being loved and “positive” and generative primary emotions. effect of a food repositioning nudge on healthy food choice”, L.C. esteemed by, the world. And Play stands upon They can be deep motivators towards building an Van Gestel et al. Psychology & Health, Volume 33, 2018 – Issue the security Care generates, in order to healthily ecological civilisation. 6, tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08870446.2017.1416116 6 See my review of nudge thinking in the Independent, 23 October (and joyfully) experiment and test how we can be 2011 https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/ in that world. A FINAL CAVEAT. The human sciences (and books/features/nudge-nudge-pat-kane-s-big-ideas-for-busy- Far from being trivial or a diversion, in particularly the sciences of emotions) are a readers-864477.html 7 See my New Scientist review of Cass Sunstein’s The Ethics evolutionary terms Play is how social, symbolic, crowded, contested and constantly shifting field. of Influence, 16 November 2016 newscientist.com/article/ imaginative animals like us rehearse being with A recent challenge to affective neuroscience’s mg23231002-200-playing-politics-exposing-the-flaws-of-nudge- each other. It creates zones (and much of the map of evolved and deeply rooted emotions thinking/. “This is why nudge thinking may be faltering – its arts can be subsumed in the Play system) in comes from the constructionist model, understanding of human nature unnecessarily (and perhaps expediently) downgrades our powers of conscious thought. which realities are simulated, put together and preeminently developed by the aforementioned From the psychology and neuroscience around play, creativity, taken apart, with the risks taken being merely Lisa Feldman Barrett.12 dreaming and sleep, we can as easily derive a picture of human discursive or creative, not life-or-death.10 It’s “constructionist” because Barrett and cognition that doesn’t recoil from the buzzing, blooming demands of everyday life, but exults in using imagination, When we understand how Play operates in her peers believe that emotions are much more stories, abstraction and metaphor to comprehend the world. the evolved human condition, we can break culturally constructed (and culturally relative) than Can we architect a society that supports our cognitive through the way that advertising (and digitality) they are a set of “essential” emotional modules. In a surpluses, rather than exploiting our cognitive limits? If hold promises of novelty and new worlds just out sardonic way, she charges essentialists as invoking ‘attention is a scarce resource’, as Sunstein writes, perhaps we might manage the coming march of automation a different way, of reach of their consumers, in an endless and “an inner beast that needed to be controlled by by using it to reduce our overall working hours? This would then addictive fashion. Instead, if we try to access the divine, rational thought”.13 increase the zone in which our attention could be freely and creative and prototypical impulse at the heart Her own laboratory studies and literature creatively exercised.” 8 ‘What Does An Ecological Civilisation Look Like?’, Jeremy Lent, of Play, and instil it with the empathy of Care, reviews aim to refute the idea that we have a “fear” Yes! Magazine, Feb 16, 2021 yesmagazine.org/issue/ecological- we end up with the young climate strikers and circuit or “play” circuit in the brain. For Feldman, civilization/2021/02/16/what-does-ecological-civilization-look- Extinction Rebellion’s most successful moments the emotions are much more emergent between like/ – turning streets into alternative communities a human and their environment. They arising 9 ‘Selected Principles of Pankseppian Affective Neuroscience’, Kenneth L. Davis and Christian Montag, Frontiers in of performance, discourse and bravery. Into from the meeting of a flexible brain network that’s Neuroscience, 17 January 2019 frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ “grounds of play”. constantly anticipating our reality; and a culture/ fnins.2018.01025/full. See also ‘Reconciling cognitive and Seeking/Curiosity is a deep emotional system language that gives us more subtlety in handling affective neuroscience perspectives on the brain basis of emotional experience’, JaakPanksepp, Richard D.Lane, Mark for Panksepp, which goes way beyond the emotions, the more culture we imbibe. Solms, Ryan Smith, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, mammalian realm, and is essentially to do with This means, as far as I understand her work, Volume 76, Part B, May 2017, sciencedirect.com/science/article/ the inner state of any organism, which needs that our emotive, motivated selves are far more abs/pii/S0149763416301506 to ascertain what its external environment is – shapeable by a powerful story, metaphor or image 10 ‘Ethology, Interpersonal Neurobiology, and Play Insights into the Evolutionary Origin of the Arts’, Ellen Dissayanake, whether sustaining or threatening – and moves (still or moving) that we have been previously American Journal of Play, Winter 2017, Volume 9, Number around in the world to seek out that evidence. At prepared to accept. Yet if we understand 2 journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf- the human level, philosophers like Spinoza called this, claims Barrett, we can then take on the articles/9-2-article-1-ethology.pdf 11 Antonio Damasio and Manuel Castells in conversation, ALOUD this “conatus” – understood as drive, will, motive. responsibility to re-story ourselves. And now @ Los Angeles Central Library Feb 6, 2017, youtube.com/ Seeking/Curiosity sits below and beyond aware that we have a much greater capacity to do watch?v=ONByvKuMa4w Anger, Fear, Panic, Care or Play. It manifests as a this than we realised. 12 Her excellent career website is lisafeldmanbarrett.com desire than can’t requite itself, or the impulse to I find myself placed somewhere between 13 “The Secret History of Emotions”, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 5, 2017 chronicle.com/ action rather than passivity in a situation. Such the “essentialist” and the “constructionist” article/the-secret-history-of-emotions/ desire is clearly harnessable in many directions, positions in this debate, these two camps of

10 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 11 CO-HOUSING Communality is a pre-requisite to a degrowth future. This is true in housing as much as any sphere as we imagine moving beyond ownership. Sarah Glynn on a home for everyone.

N CO-HOUSING PEOPLE live as part of a community, facilitating private areas can be kept smaller, in planned communities with the everyday interactions that keep and the overall complex remains shared spaces and facilities as well us connected, as well as deeper compact. The effective use of space as their own private space. For friendships and more practical bonds. saves both money and energy, and many, this can only be a dream, There is no need to be lonely, but shared facilities could include a Ibecause there is so little co-housing still space to be alone. carpool or energy-efficient laundry available. Now that the pandemic Building a community together or heating system. In a compact city, has increased awareness of the provides opportunities to share skills distances to the building blocks of importance of community and of and give mutual support. daily life can be kept shorter. the trauma of loneliness, co-housing Shared communal facilities If co-housing is combined with a may feature in many more dreams. allow co-housing to make good well-thought-out funding scheme, Perhaps this can help make it a use of limited space. Gardens this can help create balanced growing reality. and community rooms can be communities that continue to be Co-housing helps people live generously proportioned, while affordable for all who live there. n

12 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 13 HIS COLLABORATIVE ESSAY reflects THE GATHERING multiple voices on degrowth from a MEETING TO SHARE news, inspirations, Highlands and Islands, or Gàidhealtachd, concerns, and ideas for ways of working perspective. From Loch Ness to Caithness, together – via video calls and inevitable ‘DMs’ Ullapool to the Isle of Skye, we are a – the gathering appears like so many of the T‘rurally syndicated’ gathering of women – cyber-ventures that have emerged due to the artists, researchers, educators, producers, conditions of Covid-19. In a newly-focused programmers, practitioners – each living world of blended learning and Zoom seminars, and working in communities across this vast, ‘community transmission’ – once mediated dispersed and diverse region. Some of us have from mouths to ears, and in the tacit sharing grown up here, some of us have lived and of everyday living, but now a source of viral fear worked here for many years and others are – is increasingly virtual. Yet, we see now that finding our belonging in this place, having made the gathering was also another adaptive step into our home here much more recently. the ongoing of a ‘carrying stream.’2 This carrying In the context of Scotland’s centralised, is the continuum of Highlands and Islands Characterised as ‘peripheral’ even urbanised and growth-oriented society, the traditions and practices nurtured, through times, Highlands and Islands are viewed by many as particular responses in specific environments. within Scotland and caught in a as ‘on the edge.’ With today’s unprecedented These practices express the critical and creative post-Covid economic decline and the loss of adaptivity of those who have been able and/or historical matrix of coloniality and widespread EU funding through Brexit, there have chosen to stay here. ‘under-development’ - the Highlands are many socio-economic challenges facing the We live in northern latitudes susceptible to the marginalised communities of this region. The extremes of the anthropogenic climate crisis. We and Islands holds an emerging entangled legacies of coloniality and the effects also inhabit the legacies of inequitable and unjust of growth capitalism are strongly implicated in land ownership patterns. Our open and fragile network of possibility. these challenges: inequitable patterns of land ecologies are vulnerable to successive iterations ownership, lack of access to housing, fragile of extractive enterprise – including single species afforestation, fossil fuel entanglements and mass tourism. These anthropocene traces challenge relational living between people, and between people and place, abstracting our relationships THE CARRYING to nature. Additionally, our geography appears to predispose living in STREAM: TOWARDS dispersed, atomised communities. Yet, this seeming wildness – or candidate ‘re-wilding’ of often once-peopled land – owes more to long, localised genealogies of Imperialism. A PLURALITY OF 3 These ‘uncanny hauntings’ of multiple colonialisms – internal and worldly complicit – and historicities of peripheral positioning by POSSIBILITIES agents outwith our locale, influence life here, yet. Over time, these influences have contributed By Ainslie Roddick, Cáit O’Neill local economies, the impacts of over-tourism, both to diminishing local populations and the decline of Gaelic in its heartlands and to undermining opportunities to sustain McCullagh, Charlotte Mountford, the commodification of history, culture and ecologically, culturally, politically and materially. creativity. Primary industries have rescinded, There are other ways of seeing that these Jo Rodgers, Kirsten Body, Lauren while service industries have grown. lenses of environments, historicities and social We suggest here that the Highlands and actions afford. These include considering the Pyott, Lisa MacDonald, Mairi Islands have a vital role to play in Scotland’s historic needs of people making home in our degrowth future. Degrowth is a way of naming places – living in collaborative, seasonally McFadyen, Philomena de Lima a vision and practice that describes the kinds attuned conviviality – as gifts of becoming. and Raghnaid Sandilands. of relationships between people, resources Cooperating for growing, harvesting, weaving, and power that foster community resilience, for the empirical development of knowledges Art by Fadzai Mwakutuya. ecological stewardship, democratised decision about where fish will shoal, which plants making, creativity and conviviality. We reflect will heal, and for discerning how and where here on where we each see the roots and shoots to stay and make dwelling, the community of degrowth emerging in our own places, lives, transmissions of knowledge-in-language work and practice as a plurality of possibilities. cultures – expressed in story, music, visual arts and performance – have often knit people FIRSTLY, Cáit O’Neill McCullagh reflects in our places into highly socially connective from her home in Easter Ross on how this communities. collaboration, the gathering, began. Currently The gathering represents what Ivan Illich has researching with communities connecting identified as ‘critical technology.’4 Like the cèilidh, heritage and learning towards sustainability in hairst and hamefaerin, it is another iteration of Orkney and Shetland, Cáit practices co-curating such knowledge sharing. Practicing ‘potential as a public ethnology, co-producing exhibitions, history’,5 we gather to share useful pasts, films and new writing with people across the consider how these contribute to and renovate Highlands and Islands.1 She has curated in present knowledges, and imagine assembling museums in Lismore, Ross and Inverness. possible futures. The gathering emerged from friendships founded on these shared >>

14 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 15 interests, and our various ways of nurturing “Are we really so dependent on tourism that our society, this matrix of alternatives might be and deliberating them through creative, critical own young families can’t find homes? The current made up of community land trusts, community work in an ‘undercommons’ – with and for rate of through-put feels industrial, even abusive. gardens, woodlands and farms, community people.6 Alongside and in communities, we work It creates hostility, not hospitality. The same is energy initiatives, cooperatives of all kinds, in arts, heritages, and learning and research. true in Skye, and I can see it happening all along artists’ collectives, fair trade, food justice or By deliberating collaboratively our communal the NC500: where folk used to be delighted that food sovereignty groups, alternative currencies, actions and the meanings we make of them in visitors wanted to come here, now it is simply too not-for-profit community and social enterprises, these ‘spaces of appearance’7, we open up the much, and we become irritable and unwelcoming. systems of local exchange, tool libraries, seed traditions that shape our people-places to ask What are the ways in which we could reclaim the libraries, repair cafés, voluntary arts groups, together with historian-activist, Ariella Azoulay, word ‘hospitality’? Can we find ways to use local community heritage groups and climate or how are we making ‘traditions of what can be’?8 resources more sustainably?” environmental action groups, among many other Gaelic – language of and in our places – inspires examples. The question is how to cultivate this us in this future-assembling of knowing how to This is an increasing reality and one actively degrowth potential, opening up opportunities know what sustains people and homes; our oikos. It promoted by national and regional government and non-commodified spaces for individuals, connects our reflecting with these ‘Own’ ecologies agencies. The NC500 is an example of a groups and communities to connect, organise to our deepening empathy with others seeking marketised and marketising response to the and create lasting change. sustainability and justice throughout the world. This Scottish Government’s espousal of tourism as There are countless such initiatives seeking integrative empathy is held in the word dùthchas the single most important strand for Highlands alternative ways of living and working in the – a ‘unity existing between land, people, all living and Islands local enterprise. It was dreamt up Highlands and Islands today. In response to the creatures, nature and culture.’9 It expresses, as Alan in this fossil-fuelled growth paradigm as a way Covid-19 pandemic, many mutual aid groups Riach proposes, traditional prefiguring of our of exploiting the opportunity (and culture and emerged in local communities, and the Black contemporary concerns for ecological balance. In natures) in much the same way as colonial, Lives Matter movement globally has opened up this oikos balancing with and for all being – in local extractive industries have been in the past: some spaces for dialogue about addressing racism and world-facing lives – we place our gathering into maximise profit, exploit the resource, minimise and decolonisation across different spheres in the the ‘carrying stream’, transmitting our hopes and input to sustain the resource (people and region. Philomena de Lima, professor of Applied intentions to ‘leave no-one behind.’10 environment). It has subsumed primary industry Sociology and Rural Studies – also involved in in terms of infrastructural support, with money organic cheese making at one time – reminds us being given for visitor attractions and car parks. that the Highlands and Islands has provided a ENTANGLED LEGACIES Moreover, there is a clear lack of investment home to households and groups – from the region THE ‘UNCANNY HAUNTINGS’ of colonial in infrastructure that allows tourism to feed and those who have arrived here by accident or legacies, in all their guises, should inform back into the local economy, as opposed to just design – who have practised degrowth principles how we understand the various traditions and profiting certain businesses. for decades. Little is known or written about heritages within the Highlands and Islands, both these threads that form the fabric of the region. A historically and today. As researcher Lauren few notable examples, she suggests, include: the Pyott reminds us, the pioneering work of David ALTERNATIVE FUTURES off-grid Scoraig community on the West coast; Alston has uncovered the breadth and depth of ETHNOLOGIST AND WRITER Mairi organic farming and crofting households connected Highland involvement in the Transatlantic Slave McFadyen,13 writing from Abriachan on the through Working Worldwide on Organic Farms Trade, something which touched upon the lives north side of Loch Ness, is a member of the (WWOOF); food buying groups across the of many in the region, whether directly Enough! Collective. In November 2020 she Highlands from Tain, Skye to the Islands which or indirectly.11 was a contributor to the online short course were set up in the early 1980s and who sourced Contemporary land ownership patterns are ‘Degrowing the Economy, Regrowing our Lives’ their food from Green City, a workers’ cooperative still rooted in historical injustices, tied both to run by Enough! and the Centre for Human based in Glasgow; from these groups emerged the legacy of the Highland Clearances and, as Ecology. The pursuit of growth, she writes, a demand for accessing food in the Highlands recent research has confirmed, slavery-derived has suppressed and damaged many things which led to Highland Wholefoods, a workers’ wealth was used 200 hundred years ago to that support the flourishing of life and its vital cooperative set up in 1989; Clown Jewels, an arts enclose land into large estates.12 The landscape sustaining. Degrowth, in part, is about regrowing project in the 1980s and 1990s which emerged was then used to distract from the reality of this those lost capacities, within ourselves and in our from various individuals moving to the Highlands transformation through romantic narratives and communities. from communes in Perthshire and elsewhere and a visual culture of sublime, people-less wilderness As long as the fundamentals of our society rely those living in the Highlands; and Reforesting – an elite way of seeing that served the interests on growth, the introduction of degrowth is very Scotland, established in 1991, now a membership of landed power. Symbolic of this era is the iconic difficult – possible only in a ‘society of degrowth’ organisation concerned with the ecological and image of Landseer’s ‘Monarch of the Glen’ (1851). which we must create ourselves.14 Degrowth is not social regeneration of Scotland. Exploitative forms of tourism, Lauren argues, can a monolithic alternative to the existing capitalist There is also a rich and radical heritage of serve a similar process, with the perpetuation status-quo; rather, it encompasses ‘a matrix of activism and resistance. The story of community of this way of seeing alongside the inexorable alternatives’ which ‘opens up space for human land ownership is vital here, a story in which spread of holiday lets transforming the land and creativity.’ Imagining and assembling a degrowth the rural Highlands and Islands – Assynt, communities of the Highlands into a place where future, then, is an invitation to adventure into a Eigg, Gigha, Harris – led the way for the urban young people are unable to find or afford homes. plurality of possibilities. At the roots of a degrowth movement. We can also find inspiration from Many would argue that communities in the those communities who have long demonstrated Highlands and Islands are reliant on tourism ways of living sustainably, not in a nostalgic and the revenue it brings. The promotion of this or romantic sense, but in the radical sense of region as a tourist destination does generate “Gaelic – language of and recovering lost knowledge and experience. jobs and profits for some; at the same time, Far from being peripheral, the Highlands and mass tourism – as an engine of economic in our places – inspires us Islands have a vital role to play in imagining and growth – is complicit with global capitalism’s assembling Scotland’s degrowth futures. In practice, depthless markets and precarious labour, it in this future-assembling of degrowth is about seeking out the principles of commodifies cultures and is implicated in global knowing how to know what reconnection, decolonisation and decentralisation climate breakdown through mass international to renew and strengthen local communities of place travel. The impacts of over-tourism in fragile sustains people and homes; and interests. In the sections that follow, we highlight communities are stark. Writing from Achiltibuie some diverse but confluent tributaries into this in the Coigach peninsula, Lisa MacDonald asks, our oikos.” ‘carrying stream.’ >>

16 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 17 PEOPLE AND PLACES that will contribute to achieving a more is now involved in forming a Highland branch as a way to ‘(re)imagine alternatives, (re)create “We can use artistic skills too slow’ – we examine and embody practices PHD RESEARCHER JO Rodgers, based in just, sustainable food system in the region. of the tenancy union Living Rent.21 She is also cultural codes, messages and values for our of ‘carrying’, balancing unity between all being; Glengarry, is a co-organiser of ‘The Edge’ Accompanying the conference was a blog and setting up a social enterprise in Inverness called future(s).’ She writes, to capture perceptions making home – oikos – in collaboration with our research theme at the University of the Highlands series of podcasts, which explored themes such Clachworks, which is working towards creating local and world ecologies together. and Islands.15 Through monthly seminars, blog as regenerative farming, crofting, micro dairies, an open space for making and remaking, with a “In my art practice I use the concepts of and share them. As social We know, and we share, that this particular articles and photography, this forum offers a grain and bread production, aquaculture and the vision for a tool library, open-access workshop, degrowth and decolonisation abstractly in the and connective ‘worlding’ requires inhabiting rich, interdisciplinary space for exploring and rise in community fridges. and community garden.22 choice of subject matter and materials whilst practitioners, everything discomfort zones. Deepening reflexivity, creatively expressing the histories, contemporary Raghnaid Sandilands – writer, independent creating artwork. Degrowth has always been undertaking Mignolo’s ‘epistemic disobedience’29 experiences and potential futures of people publisher and Gaelic translator19 – is involved with “Degrowth and decoloniality are the two a way of life in developed countries in Africa; we do is inscribed in – degrowing and decolonising thinking and acting living, working and researching in so-called several creative community projects in Strathnairn foundational elements that drove Clachworks we do need to decolonise though, as Africans, a place and time.” to enable new ways of knowledge – requires a ‘peripheries.’ Her own doctoral research on the south side of Loch Ness. Lios na Feàrnaig / from its inception and can only be properly and unlearn the ways of the west as we imagine commitment to engage in these discomforts, to explores the interplay between roots-seeking Fearnag Growers is a community garden in Farr understood in tandem. While the recent them. I often remark on how this cycle of change need learning. This dynamic, relational anticipating, travel and heritage in the island of Tiree from Estate, host to events, projects and art workshops. flourishing of ‘upcycling’ projects and growing is irrevocably enshrined in humanity, the assembling and embodying is an inhabiting of the perspectives of both islanders and visitors. The garden’s most recent venture will see Col interest in the circular economy are long constant conflict between perpetual efforts to specific lived experiences, and a reaching out in Jo is also a (voluntary) director of Glengarry Gordon, a director of ‘Scotland the Bread’20 overdue, Clachworks realises that this is nothing campaign against narratives of power structures necessary connectivity. Gathering to share actions, Community Woodlands and the Development run a small heritage grain project, supporting new. The crofting culture that once sustained and encourage reform processes.” examine contexts, and imagine more sustaining Officer at the Community Woodlands the growing, harvesting and processing of old human populations across the Highlands was and just futures, is emerging to us as we experience Association, which supports Scotland’s growing grain varieties – from seed to slice! Raghnaid is necessarily circular, based on a synergetic Charlotte Mountford is also involved in socially it – stepping into the flow, finding our feet, being network of community woodland groups, many also involved with the local Fèis and with ‘Farr relationship between the land, the lives engaged art practice. She is a cultural producer Ainslie Roddick moved from Glasgow to become disturbed into shifting position, and, together, of whom are exploring communal and ecological Conversations’ – a talk series set up in 2014 to ‘oil inhabiting it and what they could produce.” and programmer, a Mancunian who moved to director of ATLAS Arts28 in Portree at the end finding how to balance. This reflects the need-and- practices rooted in degrowth principles. the wheels of engagement with issues affecting the Highlands to become co-director of Lyth Arts of 2019. ATLAS organises collective art projects gift balancing of dùthchas, responding to the new Mairi is also a voluntary director at The Scotland by hosting lively nights in one Highland The circular economy’s tenets of ‘make, remake, Centre in Caithness (LAC).26 She writes, “I love across Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh, and has a particular needs of Highlands and Islands dwellers Shieling Project / Pròiseact na h-Àirigh in hall.’ Farr Conversations has explored issues such reuse’ were encoded in the very lifestyle and my role here, as it allows me to practice radical growing library of zines, seeds, equipment, – including ourselves – in this time of pandemic, Glenstrathfarrar.16 The tradition of ‘the shieling’ as land reform and housing alongside music, songs economic reality of subsistence farming in the localism and challenge conceptions about what it and a studio for making and binding books. from the perspective of the ‘carrying stream.’ n – the summer pastures where people used to and stories. For Raghnaid, this local activism is region. The linear model of ‘take, make, use, means to be ‘rural’.” She reflects, Building on a legacy of projects invested in local graze cattle, living in huts or shelters on common about inviting people to take agency in their own discard’, which so successfully replaced it, should ecologies, their new team is beginning to imagine land – is a motif and context here for place- place, to ‘occupy the local hall’ and to be part of not only be seen as an environmental disaster, “The conditions of COVID-19 provided an how the organisation will work and feel in the based learning about crofting, horticulture, green a story that is slowly accruing and unfolding. but also as a colonial act of what Mignolo terms opportunity to really rethink how we work as years ahead. Exploring ‘Plural Futures’ through Notes building, food growing and cooking, renewable She describes this work as ‘cultural darning and ‘epistemicide’: the erasure of ways of thinking and an organisation. In a normal year, LAC would conversation, meals and artist projects, the 1 See New Connections Across the Northern Isles: vimeo.com/ 23 showcase/5946154 technologies, traditional skills, crafts and culture. mending’ – the act of finding disconnected threads being in the world. Clachworks seeks to make present hundreds of events from artists and programme is taking shape through gatherings 2 Henderson, H. (2019) ‘Under the earth I go’, in Gibson, C. (ed.) The project is in part inspired by the GalGael from the past and weaving them back together with critical connections between past and present, creatives from all over the world. Reflecting, and bodies of work which centre complexity in Hamish Henderson: Collected Poems. Edinburgh: Polygon. trust in Glasgow, a community organisation re- purpose. She writes, local and global, providing tools for making and it is possible to see how extractive this is as a belonging. The School of Plural Futures began 3 Gordon, A. (2008) Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the kindling community through learning by doing.17 remaking the world we live in. practice, particularly the world of international in 2021, an alternative school led by folk aged sociological imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. The Shieling too embodies degrowth principles; “Whatever diminishment of culture and landscape Kirsten Body is a visual arts producer also touring; how unsustainable it is for poorly paid 17-25 on Skye, exploring global climate justice 4 Illich, I. (1981) Shadow Work. London: Marion Boyars. it’s about living in right relationship with the might have taken place, we can make imaginative based in Inverness. She works for the Scottish artists and our environment. The pandemic as it relates to the lived reality and history of the 5 Azoulay, A. A. (2019) Potential History: Unlearning land, exploring the landscape’s past to help shape connections that cut across time, to seek out Artists’ Union and is a founding member of the has provided us with a blue-print for future locale, and the various outcomes and desires of Imperialism. London & New York: Verso. 6 Harney, S. and Moten, F. (2013) the undercommons: fugitive a more resilient future. knowledge and be part of a process that allows artist-led collective Circus Artspace, established working, notably in the development of the school will begin to inform ATLAS’ future planning and black study. New York: Minor compositions. 24 Lisa MacDonald is a teacher, writer, singer us, perhaps, to begin to create the circumstances in 2019. Circus is committed to supporting new projects like CAIR: Caithness Artists in work. As this evolves, reflecting on the the 7 Arendt, H. ([1958] 1998) The Human Condition. Chicago: and crofter in Achiltibuie. She is particularly necessary for transformation and change.” graduate artists in the Highlands and to building Residence. ‘Cair / Cayr’ is a Scots word which gathering, Ainslie writes, University of Chicago Press interested in connections – between people and a public programme around contemporary visual means to return to a place where you have been 8 Azoulay, A. A. (2019). 9 Riach, A. (2020) ‘Dúthchas: The word that describes place, between past, present and future, between Lauren Pyott is a researcher, cultural organiser arts. In 2021, this will include new billboard before. I initially thought this meant Déjà vu, “I am grateful to this gathering of critical understanding of land, people and culture’, thenational.scot/ Gaelic language and heritage, between rights and renters’ rights activist based in Inverness. commissions, an off-grid residency with Black but then realised ‘cair’ doesn’t feel accidental – it friends in supporting a slowness that is not news/18306403.duthchas-word-describes-understanding-land- and responsibilities, and all across the integrated Her previous research explored decoloniality Isle Permaculture and Arts and Inverness’ first is a deliberate return. Many of us thought we too slow, and for the succinct reminders of the people-culture/ [accessed 16 March 2020]. 10 United Nations General Assembly (2015) Transforming our ecosystem that is this world. She writes, and the politics of solidarity in the arts, and she Zine Festival. She writes, wanted to return to the normal we had before mistakes, bad intentions, historical repetitions, world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 21 coronavirus, but I don’t. Where I actually want and the power of stories.” October 2015, A/RES/70/1, [online], available: refworld.org/ “For me, degrowth is about reclaiming self- “Circus want our 2021 programme to track to return to is a place we have all been before; a docid/57b6e3e44.html [accessed 20 January 2020]. sufficiency. There is so much land that we could the shifting demographic of the Highlands and place of home and of community.” Cáit shares some final thoughts concerning 11 Alston, D. (2006) ‘Very rapid and splendid fortunes’? Highland Scots in Berbice (Guyana) in the early nineteenth century’, in grow things on, live on, raise children and hens Islands and focus on the hidden, forgotten and how the gathering is a becoming of tradition; Transactions of theGaelic Society of Inverness, LXIII (2002- and cows, but we can’t because it belongs to some unheard voices within our community. We want CAIR embeds artists with distinct Caithness not just the traditions of what has been, but for 2004), 208-236; Alston, D. (2018) ‘Scottish Slave-owners in landowner far away. The Green Bowl in Elphin to diverge from Highland cliches and traditional communities, exploring how LAC can work with what can be. The recognition that ‘community Suriname: 1651–1863’, Northern Scotland, 9(1),17-43 12 MacKinnon, I. and MacKillop, A. (2020). Plantation Slavery have done a brilliant job of creating a crofters’ notions of romanticism to reveal unexplored artists and facilitate creative responses to local transmission’ enables the virus to grow has and Landownership in the West Highlands and Islands: Legacies co-operative who grow things locally and then narratives and illustrate the interweaving, problems, encouraging creative cultural activism restricted our convivial opportunities for tacit and Lessons. Published discussion paper for Community Land organise the picking up of supplies and the delivery “Far from being peripheral, international cultures of our place. We want and prioritising an artist and community-centric carrying, including adapting those traditions, Scotland. of orders from meat and eggs to vegetables to amplify a wider diversity of voices, places approach to recovery after coronavirus. The knowledges, and practices that are vital for 13 mairimcfadyen.scot 14 Latouche, S. (2009). Farewell to Growth. Cambridge: Polity and baking. We shouldn’t need to rely on vast the Highlands and and experiences and promote equality, with a artists are all based in Caithness, mostly in the resourcing people-places through the constant Press supermarkets shipping food from goodness-knows- particular focus on non-dominant narratives communities they are working with. Instead of a certainty of change – what Raghnaid has 15 The Edge blog, University of the Highlands and Islands: idruhi. where, at a huge environmental and social cost. Islands have a vital role and communities.” one-off workshop by a visiting artist, the artists called our ‘cultural darning and mending’. wordpress.com Until we get to organising real land reform, we are working with their matched communities The pandemic has restricted our spaces for 16 The Shieling Project theshielingproject.org to play in imagining and 17 GalGael galgael.org could all grow wee bits in our gardens and organise Earlier this year, Circus collaborated with artist over the next six months, co-designing a bespoke sharing these ‘critical technologies’, including 18 Highland Good Food Conversation highlandgoodfood.scot sharing. It gives us back confidence in ourselves assembling Scotland’s Fadzai Mwakutuya to host an informal online programme of work that will explore local the affordance to collaborate in examining the 19 A’ Siubhal nam Frith-Rathadan. raghnaidsandilands.scot and in the land – and in our place on it. It also conversation called ‘Ubuntu // Daondachd // themes and issues: narratives that shape us and, as Fadzai reminds 20 Scotland the Bread scotlandthebread.org 21 Living Rent livingrent.org connects us to each other within communities: degrowth futures. In Humanity’ about intersectional topics, including us, to practice the reflexivity that ‘shifts’ our 22 Clachworks clachworks.com I have hens, you bake – beautiful!” the experience of and reception to migrations “We can use artistic skills to capture perceptions mindsets towards the futures we are making. 23 Mignolo, W.D. (2007) ‘Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the practice, degrowth is – people leaving, returning and coming to the and share them. As social practitioners, While the gathering emerged as a particular logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality’. Cultural studies, 21(2-3), 449-514. Food sovereignty is a vital part of degrowth. Highlands and Islands. Fadzai, from Zimbabwe everything we do is inscribed in a place environmental response, in a fragile environment 24 Circus Artspace circus.scot Earlier this year, the Highland Good Food about seeking out the and based in the off-grid community of Scoraig and time. What we are trying to do is not being pushed to further precarity, it is also a 25 Fadzai Mwakutuya fadzaimwakutuya.co.uk Conversation took place online, bringing principles of reconnection, near Ullapool, is an artist who makes thought marketising placemaking but place-being creative, critical social action of transmitting 26 Lyth Arts Centre lytharts.org.uk together farmers, crofters, growers, bakers, provoking socially engaged artwork under the and commonplacing; a creative assemblage the expressions of our ecological connectivity, 27 Lovejoy, A. (2011) Interfaces of location and memory: An 18 25 exploration of place through context-led arts practice. PhD cooks and community groups. The conference decolonisation and name Afro Art Lab. She is also a member of representing the multi-faceted responses and an enacting of our intention to be a reflexive thesis, University of the Arts London and Falmouth University. provided an opportunity for people to work the Repository of the Undercommons (RotU), encounters of a place.”27 resource. In collectively considering and 28 ATLAS Arts atlasarts.org.uk together and come up with tangible actions decentralisation interests.” a curator/artist residency borne out of Enough! responding – as Ainslie says, being ‘slow but not 29 Mignolo, W.D. (2007)

18 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 19 SCOTLAND QUO VA DIS? COTLAND IS A country “To see ourselves as others see us.” – From Germany transition of local authorities from facing challenges while a model resembling European heading for several transitions Joachim Spangenberg shares a view of Scotland as a traditions to the new public simultaneously, but also management approach preferred in blessed by opportunities. post-Brexit, pre-independent model for degrowth and the Anglosphere since the Thatcher SWorking to realise them is urgent and Reagan times. to make Scotland future-proof survival. Photos by Stewart Bremner. – a green country with a clean POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE economy and solidarity society. diverging preferences and not about half of the Britons – 84% SO WHILE A political divorce may Transforming the economy by imposing those of one side upon of them English – blame people be as long away as Mr. Johnson stays physical degrowth would be active the other, an option evaporated at becoming unemployed in the his course, there is some repair work work towards independence, first the latest since the Westminster COVID crisis that losing their to be done in the Scottish society within the political restrictions of government decision to leave the job was their own fault1). This and its institutional structures. the UK, then possibly with extended EU and take Scotland (unlike attitude has been propagated and Dismantling (part of) the Wheatley competences in devolution (usually Northern Ireland). exploited by an undemocratic and reforms, complementing the the offer to buy off independence So the call for political increasingly illiberal, cronyism reminder that with a maximum of votes), and finally in an independent independence is plausible, but not driven political-economic system local citizen participation would state. Political independence might enough: political independence on top of a weak and shrinking overcome an important legacy of even come too early if the journey without economic independence industrial base (accelerated by Thatcherite times. towards degrowth and sufficiency is but a chimera, and how difficult Brexit) and a dominating financial Other elements – constrained has not made sufficient progress by it can be to gain that status is industry mainly located in London. by resources for the time being, but that date. something the UK government is Unfortunately, there have been some groundwork is possible – would just learning on the fly (to avoid spill-overs into Scotland, partly be doing whatever is possible to INDEPENDENCE? misunderstandings, economic enforced by UK law, but also partly restore the public services slashed WHICH INDEPENDENCE? independence does not imply a adopted by mainstream politics. under austerity, in particular at the IF THE MAJORITY of Scottish strive for autarky, but trade between For instance, as a result of UK local level, including functioning, citizens will support independence, independent states with their own politics, local communities have decentralised health care system. in a democratic county, the way national economies, not of one state been suffering from austerity Or take the higher education: if it is forward would be obvious. Or is it? with its appendix). An established like communities across the considered not a market good but Let’s first scrutinise what independent reputation requires UK, and have been transformed a public good, it should be as freely “independence”, this totemic a distinguishable profile in all geographically and functionally accessible as the NHS. catchword, really means, and then three dimensions, and targeted through the introduction of the new Have in mind that the have a look at processes, strategies action and communication for its public management in 1975. classification of goods, whether and results. Totems symbolise establishment. In the higher education system, as public, meritocratic, common important desires, but rarely give Scotland does not only host the pool or private market goods is a the full picture as believers in CULTURAL INDEPENDENCE best university in the UK, but also societal decision, and independence “sovereignty” south of the Scottish REGARDING THE CULTURAL many of its more fragile and most includes rethinking the current border are just realising. independence, Scotland has gained commercialised ones. In both cases patterns, based on Scottish values First of all, independence is its own profile as a rather normal economic the effective provision of and preferences. Strengthening local neither a state nor an act, but northern European nation with public services – higher education is authorities would also release civil a process, as the fuK (formerly an inclination for social justice, an almost cost-free service in most society from a major burden and united Kingdom) is just a green (and blue) environment, European countries – are hampered permit focussing its energies more experiencing; it comprises at least participatory democracy and by budget constraints. on the future than on plastering cultural, economic and political a functioning welfare state. The neoliberal obsession with over the cracks of a broken system: independence plus an established Productivity is as high as in economic growth prevents rational as admirable as the efforts of NGOs independent reputation. England, the population is well analysis of needs, and undermines and charities are, it is a shame that Cultural independence without educated, and many universities key environmental and social they have to substitute for lacking political independence is only are world-beating. However, it is policy requirements. Fortunately public services instead of offering possible with a high degree of suffering a bit from its political for Scotland, some of its traditions innovation and added value. autonomy, while the UK is probably environment, a little England also in these fields have deep roots All of this implies that winning a the most centralised state in nation which is an extreme outlier and high resilience – its local referendum is not the only strategy Western and Central Europe (an compared to the rest of Europe. jurisdiction, for example, reaching to pursue independence – it may achievement given the competition In England, neoliberal attitudes back 700 years, and the Convention even be more important to do of France, Spain, Poland and are running deep (according to of Scottish Local Authorities some the basic preparations now which Hungary). In respecting mutually a Kings College London study, 500 years, with 1975 marking the would permit, once self- >>

20 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland determination over the tax income while underpinning climate and of resources beyond human needs the extra cost with payback coming Regarding import, the collapse and 2020, Edinburgh was ranked 17th for Scotland implies pursuing a has been achieved, to build new and biodiversity problems. Hence is accepted. While human needs from the subsequent savings. subsequent re-establishment of in the world for its financial services “A European productive, resilient and fairer better. Admittedly, it is a bit like without a significant reduction are limited, what is infinite is the Degrowth and sufficiency would supply chains in the Corona crisis, sector, and 6th in Western Europe, Scotland must be economic model, delivering long- refurbishing a ship while sailing it – of the environmental pressures number of potential satisfiers for restructure input and output, supply and following Brexit, has shown according to the Global Financial term sustainability and economic but better to do it before the storms from resource consumption, it will these needs. Sufficiency is then to and demand, reducing resource that import substitution is indeed Services Centres Index, with more prepared to re- opportunity for all. Fortunately, resulting from the divorce will sink neither be possible to reach the UN find resource light satisfiers for consumption and hence import possible while some more proximate than 80,000 professionals employed the prevailing structure of the the boat. However, redesigning Sustainable Development Goals, nor human needs, many of which will needs, and moderate the export production in regional clusters is directly by Scottish financial enter a changed Scottish industry offers a variety governance and institutions, under to guard the natural assets making be communication, social bounds volumes required for a balanced helpful for enhanced resilience. But services industry. of opportunities for this, and for the limitations prevailing, requires up for a significant part of the and other social processes, rather trade. Currently about two-thirds finding new export markets is a Throughout history, the financial community, and playing an important role in a fresh thinking and public discourses wealth of Scotland. Current policies, than market goods. And even the of all Scottish imports come from serious challenge and will take time sector has been an assertion of for the role to play changing Europe. regarding societal preferences and however, are not dedicated to definition of good consumer goods the rest of the UK, and 60% of its – if you assume, as the LSE did, that national identity, a source of some Scotland was one of the social practices. The symptoms of safeguarding assets, but to liquidate and their value would change: if an exports go there – degrowth and the portfolio to be sold remains the pride and a bulwark for the Scottish within it. Striving industrial powerhouses of Europe aspects of English conservatism the stocks of natural wealth as only industrial quality vacuum cleaner sufficiency would change that. same. This implies that structural economy against being run from from the time of the Industrial cannot be overcome – not even the sales but not the stocks count survives twenty times as many uses Regarding imports, the collapse change, happening anyway all over London. However, since 1979, for economic Revolution onwards. This left a after political independence – if for the GDP, and GDP growth is as a household cleaner, but costs and subsequent re-establishment the world, must be given a direction management of the UK economy legacy in the diversity of goods and the Scottish government still feels the fetish of (neo)liberal policies. twice as much, the equipment cost of supply chains in the Corona supporting both sustainability and (including Scotland) has followed independence services which Scotland produces, bound to neoliberal politics of Consequently, degrowth is not about per use decreases by 90%. crisis, and following Brexit, has enhanced economic independence. a broadly laissez-faire approach, from traditional ones like textiles deregulation, free markets and decreasing the GDP but rejects this Cars are essentially not shown that import restructuring is To make an independent including the financial sector and and whisky to jet engines, buses balanced budgets. The tide has fetish. Instead degrowth aims at automobiles but autostabiles, indeed possible, while some more Scotland truly independent, it must the Bank of England as Scotland’s is one of the most destructive and ships, computer software and turned in Europe in this respect reducing resource consumption to standing uselessly around and proximate production in regional gain economic self-determination central bank. The thrive for industries, causing massive energy microelectronics, as well as banking, (witness the European Green enable people to “living well within occupying public space between clusters is helpful for enhanced as well – which of course would deregulation the economy, including consumption, material flows and insurance, investment management Deal and the growing discussions planetary boundaries” (Jonathon 22 and 23 ½ hours per day; over a resilience. Finding new export not be a splendid isolation from the the banking sector, was one of the biodiversity loss. Scottish industrial and other related financial services. about Degrowth or the role of the Porritt) or “living well, within the lifetime of twelve years they are used markets is not as serious a challenge outside world, no ‘Scotland first’ as reasons doe the financial crisis policy should aim at phasing out This history, if modernised, offers state): the SNP should rethink limits of our planet” (the EU 2050 three months to one year. Sharing as the LSE assumed, as products for some opponents might assert; the starting 2008 – Adam Smith, having such dinosaurs as mining zinc, and opportunities for the future (but the what is an appropriate economic target). This requires to complement could increase the daily use time sustainable consumption are new dedication to join the Single Market experienced the 1772 banking minerals, even if that due to their ‘modernised’ is crucial – think of policy perspective for Scotland, in the decarbonisation of the energy from one to ten hours, driving the and meet the demands of growing again demonstrates how nonsensical crash in Edinburgh, had warned local economic importance may the huge tracks of land for hunting particular when the scheduled path system with a dematerialisation of cost of cars per kilometer down consumer groups; they are also in such suspicions are. But is should not to include banking into the require targeted measures to provide and shooting for a tiny percentage leads back into the EU. production and consumption, and 80% even if a doubling of prices for line with the recent developments have its own industrial policy and deregulation processes he favoured. alternatives. of people, often at the expense of efficiency with sufficiency. better quality is assumed. of EU law to make repairability of development, and beyond fishing, In a currency union with the rest of As the English navy will not have Scottish biodiversity). For instance, As this may appear as if Significant reductions in resource a range of consumer goods and the tourism and whisky an economic the UK, the Bank of England would its ships built in an independent the food industry sector is a quality WITH DEGROWTH explaining one dubious new term consumption (and sales, and hence extended availability of spare parts portfolio which is attractive to EU remain the lender of last resort (an Scotland, Glasgow as the hub of the producer, and with the EU “Farm AND SUFFICIENCY FROM by using other, just as dubious GDP) would occur without any mandatory. These are but first steps partners, oriented towards the 2050 option the Tories reject) – but an UK’s shipbuilding industry must to Fork” strategy, the Chemical PROBLEM-CAUSING TO ones, let me give another round decrease in services enjoyed. Of of ‘Turning the Trends Together’, as vision of the 7th Environmental independent Scotland would have look out for new niches (anyway, the Strategy and the Zero Pollution PROBLEM-SOLVING POLICIES of explanations. While efficiency course, such a transformation the 8th EU Environmental Action Action Programme (7th EAP) titled to turn to the Bank of England Westminster U-turn to increasing aiming at reducing pesticide use and ACCORDING TO THE recent is well known as ‘making more would require creating new Programme is titled. ‘Living well, within the limits of our and the Treasury to protect its the stock of nuclear missiles and toxicity by half in the next decade, study of the London School of output from the same input’ decent employment opportunities planet’, motivated by the 8th EAP savers. In the longer turn, despite placing them in Scotland is a moving to sustainable farming now, Economics, leaving the UK would (hardly ever ‘using less input for for idle production workers in ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE: ‘Turning the Trends Together’ and its strength in fintech and multiple toxic gift). Fortunately, there are or even already being doing so, is be twice to thrice as expensive for the same output’, a way to describe the reproduction sector of care, MINIMISING RISKS in compliance with the European start-ups, an oversized and vibrant alternatives: take for instance ship a clear first mover advantage. This Scotland as having been taken out dematerialisation), sufficiency maintenance and repair. The higher CURRENTLY ABOUT two-thirds Green Deal. financial industry is a risk as much recycling which is so far mostly is an opportunity to reduce inputs, of the EU via Brexit. However, policy can be defined as ‘enough for price of better quality goods is an of all Scottish imports come from Both tasks are deeply as an asset, and to become rather done under horrible environmental a physical degrowth, which need such figures are always based on every need’. This implies that neither opportunity for the Scottish banking the rest of the UK, and 60% of intertwined. A big income source of dull and conservative again would and working conditions in South not imply economic losses due to assumptions, and in this case the insufficient resource access like sector to come forward with loan its exports go there – economic the past has been the oil industry, safeguard the Scottish economy Asia. It could turn into a clean quality premiums consumers are assumption is a rather unchanged energy poverty, nor the squandering and credit schemes which finance independence needs to change that. which is in decline since the against the risks of volatile financial source of employment and resources ready to pay. Scotland already has economic structure and policy, and beginning of the century and must markets Hence a capable central for the industry, in particular when a vibrant food industry, and home- continued economic dependence be phased out by 2050 in a climate bank acting in line with Scottish ‘ships’ includes the oil platforms made brands which have – or could on England. However, if these neutral EU – 2040 would be a better interests is required to avoid threats and installations being dismantled have – European and international assumptions are changed, the result will target line from a climate policy to the national budget. Let the banks and recycled when the North Sea appeal. The sustainable production be different. perspective. This means that not move their headquarters, their top oil production is phased out, and of beef and mutton with grazing I here argue that a sustainable only a significant number of jobs management and with it the risks the offshore wind and wave power rather than agro-industrial mass transformation of the economy, will be lost in that sector, but it is and responsibilities – but keep the installations when they meet their production generates premium significantly reducing its resource very well paid jobs – something back offices jobs in Scotland where time. products and is not only well-suited consumption, i.e. with physical to have in mind when looking for rents are a little more than half to the Scottish landscape, but also degrowth, can be a game changer for a substitutes. the price of London, and qualified ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE: caters for health food trends all over transition towards both sustainability This is also the challenge when personnel is abundant. However, SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES Europe (the still neo-feudalistic and economic independence. jobs in the financial industry sector that implies a new strategy: not EUROPE IS UNDERGOING land ownership structure may So what does ‘physical degrowth’ are lost. Although having been growth of volume and risks, but massive societal and industrial require further measures than mean? shrinking significantly in the last degrowth of the sector. change, with the European Green the competencies given to local It is generally known that fossil decade, and although in Scotland Finally, there is another sector Deal just the tip of the iceberg (a authorities half a decade ago, also fuel consumption drives the climate financial services have a lower to be mentioned which is hardly large tip, admittedly). A European to enhance reforestation where crisis, land use change drives share of GDP than for the UK as compatible with a sustainable, Scotland must be prepared to appropriate instead of wood biodiversity loss in particular in a whole, the sector is still outsized environmentally benign future re-enter a changed community, export). Refraining from importing agricultural areas, and material for Scotland’s own economy, and a development: mining and and for the role to play within it. protein-rich feedstock is not only flows destroy landscape and habitats risk for its economic resilience. By quarrying. Globally mining Striving for economic independence good for the nutrient balance >>

22 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 23 of national lands and rivers, but unlike others, let fishers sell their work is occupying a niche in the certain place and at certain times, but the different modes of governance, is also a significant contribution quotas abroad. In 2018 the Dutch high quality sector – producing it should be focussed on sustainable, and without having read at least a to future-proofing the system be ship Cornelis Vrolijk, registered not necessarily more but continue culturally embedded tourism, and it bit of Dante, Cervantes and Schiller dematerialising it. Agriculture may in Caterham, owned 23% of the earning a decent income from the has its limits. it will be difficult to understand the be of minor importance for the entire UK quota – not an issue high end of the textile market is a The most modern sector, and imaginaries motivating European Scottish GDP (about 2%), but it caused by the Fisheries Policy, but a strategy in line with past efforts. Not rather unknown to European citizens – who in turn should affects ¾ of Scotland’s landscape property deal. The other one is that growth of volume, but of quality customers, is the IT and high read Burns and Common Sense and thus its biodiversity, making in Britain, 77% of the boats are less is future-proof option. However, tech industry – who knows how Philosophy. Reading such authors, but it a crucial sector for a sustainable than ten metres long, employing in this sector as well it should be large a share of tablets, laptops also the daily news works much better Scotland. Other high quality food, most of the UK’s 12,000 fishers, accompanied by branding, maybe and equipment bought in Europe when understanding the language. from salmon and other smoked yet owning just 4% of local quota. stimulated and coordinated by comes from Scotland? High quality In Switzerland or Luxemburg, three fish to cheese and fruit contribute The British government could have the Scottish government, making research, not only in Edinburgh, languages are mandatory, four usual, to the domestic quality of life, but changed that, redistributing quotas ‘Scottish quality’ a household name and multiple spin-offs promise and three to four in Portugal. In are also promising export goods between British big ships and small all over Europe and beyond. solid economic prospects in the Germany only two to three, sadly. – already the food industry earns boats. Such a change was even One of the growing economic digital age. However, given the Offering incentives to take language more revenues than oil, and the advocated by the EU’s Common sectors in Scotland is the services limitations of resource supply, courses would be a great step, as Scottish smoked salmon industry Fisheries Policy which called sector (including hospitality), the escalating energy demand would be a replacement for the is worth more than all of the UK for including “social, economic representing already three-quarters of the IT infrastructure, and the Erasmus Programme with a more fishing industry. Whisky is probably and environmental criteria” in of the Scottish economy. From a need for digital sufficiency, many European focus than the Westminster the best known of Scotland’s quota allocation, but it was not sustainability point of view, this is of the growth prognoses appear suggestions. Such programmes manufactured products. Despite implemented in Britain. As small a positive trend, as the energy and overblown. Again most promising are the launch platform for lasting international competition (now even boats matter most for coastal resource intensity in services is lower are market niches – for instance, private networks, complementing from English whisky) production life and do least environmental than in the average industry (but less the idea of the circular economy, the institutional European networks soars with new distilleries coming to harm, they should take priority, than many suspect as services depend not central to the EU’s industrial with Scottish members, for cultural the market, supporting about 35,000 with quota taken from the big on material and energy intensive policy, has not really penetrated associations, consumer organisations jobs. Exports have continuously boats and given to the under-10m infrastructures). The open question the hard- and software industry, (BEUC), professional organisation increased, and Scotch whisky is flotilla – a measure to degrow the is the way services are provided: while in the field of energy saving in all fields, trade unions (ETUC), now one of the UK’s overall top fishing industry in a socially and by profit-oriented companies, by incremental progress has been environmentalists (e.g. European five manufacturing export earners. environmentally sustainable way. the state or by the third sector of made but disruptive new ideas Environment Bureau, FoE Europe) As a dedicated Scotch malt whisky Besides reducing catches, to let local initiatives and not-for-profit are lacking. Such concepts could and bird watchers (Birdlife Europe). enthusiast, this is the one sector stocks recover, scaling down is businesses? In a country with less reconcile physical degrowth, zero coming and going of tides is another the emerging hydrogen and Power to attractive to potential customers. On the government level, there I personally consider degrowth advisable: banning large swimming dense population and only few big carbon targets, and good work in reliable and regular natural process Liquid (PtL), industries which supply However, beyond a marketing are non-regulatory European undesirable… fish factories, banning dredging cities, the latter appears to be the most a profitable industrial sector. Will which can be exploited for energy their customers with renewable and branding campaign to be institutions which are not part of the Fisheries is another traditional and other unsustainable forms effective way to bring services directly Scotland offer solutions? generation; one of the world’s oldest (“blue” or “green”) hydrogen, i.e. initiated and supported by the EU apparatus and welcome non-EU sector of low economic but high of fisheries. Most of this would to the people – again a question Finally, there is the energy sector, tidal energy power plants is located not based on processing methane or Scottish government involving all members like the Dublin Foundation cultural and social importance, at be possible under the current of appropriate structuring of local probably the most promising one on Islay. Although in terms of direct other fossil fuels. Hydrogen as such, sectors, there are more outreach for the Improvement of Living least in coastal areas. The waters legal situation – the villain sits in administrations, and of providing despite the transformation it is solar energy, Scotland is not really or hydrogen-based synthetic fuels are measures Holyrood could consider and Working Conditions run by surrounding Scotland are some Westminster, not in Brussels, and them with the financial means to do undergoing. While oil and gas will privileged, in exploiting its indirect one of the big hopes of the aviation for profiling. If there were Scottish employers and unions, or European of the richest in Europe; however should be exposed to more pressure so, e.g. by local taxes for local services. be phased out rather soon, they effects it has huge potential – given and hauling sectors where some cultural centres in major cities, Environment Agency EEA which has in the last decade permanent to address the real reasons of small- Part of the services industry will in many applications – while its on shore and off shore potentials, fossil fuel applications are otherwise offering music performances, members from the EU, EFTA and the overfishing has led to historically fishers’ problems. is tourism. While battered by the having the structural change in Scotland has the capability of hard to replace (probably less so fashion presentations by Scottish Balkan countries. Interestingly, the low abundances of commercially Like in all industrialised COVID crisis and in urgent need of mind – be replaced by electricity becoming one of the biggest clean for the private car market), and if designers and art exhibitions of EEA is open to membership for all valuable fish in the North Sea economies, over the last 40 recovery (like many of the hospitality from renewable sources. Scotland’s energy suppliers in the EU. produced locally and shipped by boat Scottish artists and museums, poets European countries, and as “country” and parts of the North Atlantic, years both manufacturing and businesses for domestic enjoyment), continental shelf area, where the But being an electricity producer or pipeline, a significant share of the and writers, philosophers and is the legal state of Scotland, the EEA although cod is now relocating extractive industries have been tourism is a double edged sword. sea is shallow enough to build is not the end of the line – on the value added could remain in Scotland. scientists, but also cooking courses Scientific Committee has already from English to Scottish waters losing importance. This applies Witness the anti-tourism sentiments sea-floor anchored wind energy input side, green energy requires This is all the more the case when for Scottish cuisine, the profile encouraged Scotland to join the due to climate change. European for instance to the textile industry, and campaigns in Venice or installations is huge, and the wind the mechanical work of building basic chemicals produced by using would be diversified. institution. fishing ministers are to blame for which surprisingly is still a major Barcelona, and tipping points become is strong and quasi-permanent. turbines and other installation, “green hydrogen” are processes to But as important for a lasting much of that loss as they have set employer in Scotland, with a obvious, with tourism going from a Scotland could provide a quarter of which is already a relevant sector higher value chemical products – an relation as presenting oneself frankly IN OLD FRIENDSHIP to Scotland’s quota continuously higher than workforce of more than 20,000. blessing to a nightmare when crossing the EU’s off-shore wind electricity of the Scottish economy. Extending option the Scottish chemicals industry is understanding the other side, southern neighbour, Scots might be the maximum sustainable ones Here again the key to survival them. Arguably, the “disneyfication” production, and a comparably the capabilities to producing, to transform itself into a carbon- and that begins in education, in willing to do the English a big favour determined by science – here the besides modern production of Scotland’s capital city has reliable one part of it. Beyond the maintaining and recycling all negative post-fossil industrial sector, learning about history, philosophy, by saying farewell: a UK having only potential positive impact technology, qualified jobs and good reached and occasionally crossed continental shelf, sea floor based these marine installations offers in line with dematerialisation and literature, arts, science, politics. For shrunk by a third would (hopefully) from Brexit, significantly reducing that threshold, with disneyfication wind turbines cannot be built; opportunities for a plethora of sufficiency criteria. instance, history book chapters jointly enable England to first time reflect the overall quota to let the fish meaning to take culturally significant wind energy farms would have to qualified and well-paid jobs. Add authored by French and Scottish on its own identity, its potentials and stocks recover, has been spoiled “Scotland’s stories, trivialising and marketing be floating – and Scotland hosts to this the up- and downstream authors about the Napoléon wars, their limits, beyond imperial fantasies. by Westminster. Britain has two continental shelf them, depriving them of meaning for the world’s biggest floating offshore potentials, and the effects can be ANCHORING SCOTLAND or by German, French, Russian and It might be painful, but would be a specific problems with fishing increased profit. Beyond Edinburgh, wind farm, the 50MW Kincardine enormous. IN EUROPE Scottish authors on the world wars healing process. n quota the UK government does area, where the sea hiking in the Highlands would be less installation. Wave Energy Scotland, Upstream, smart IT solutions are AS MENTIONED BEFORE, an would help put national narratives in not address, failures the Scottish of an enjoyment in an overcrowded formed at the request of the Scottish sought, and offer opportunities for independent country needs a a broader context. The same applies Dr. Joachim H. Spangenberg is government should emphasize is shallow enough landscape, and the Ring of Brodgar Government, is a world leader in the start-ups and established firms, with distinct profile, a brand – ‘Scottish to philosophy: without knowing Vice President, Sustainable Europe and push to revert as soon as as overcrowded as Stonehenge would development of marine energy – so personnel available from Scotland’s quality’ may be an example, the difference between European Research Institute Scientific and possible, independent or not yet. to build sea-floor be a nightmare. So sure there is an who now rules the waves? Besides first class academic faculties. communicating both identity consequentialism and Anglo-Saxon Committee Chair, BUND/Friends One is that free-market Britain, anchored wind opportunity for growth in tourism, in the up and down of waves, the Downstream electricity is the basis of and a dedication sounding utilitarism it is hard to understand of The Earth Germany energy installations Notes 1 The Guardian, Feb. 25th, 2021 is huge, and the wind is strong and

24 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 25 STORY OF STEEL AND THE LETTER M Words: Juana Adcock; illustration: Fadzai Mwakutuya; photo: Ewan Bush

STEEL

I place my palm en la reja called border wall. Let its steel enter my body: iron alloyed with carbon hardened to prevent the movement of dislocations. I am in Tijuana, looking at California through the bars though it isn’t clear where the prison lies. To my left the bars peter out into an ocean whose waves refuse to be contained.

The body of an adult human contains about four grams of iron; all four of mine rush to meet la reja imantada. When we speak of magnetism, we think of love, or charisma, or crowds of faces all in one direction. But never of iron as the metal at the active site of many enzymes dealing with cellular respiration or the pull towards a ‘better life’.

Glasgow’s sandstone tenements, incidentally, are red because they contain iron. Our blood stone is iron ore. It emanates its own light. We are the blood, migrating bringing cargo from one cell to the next THE LETTER M STORYLINES keeping the body alive, we transport mercancía With a guru’s moustache and a penchant for conspiracy Roads are heavier on the rich side of the line. maquinaria the madman explains to me that language is a form of mind control Asphalt mixed with cement is whiter manos the grammar itself holding us in a bind loudening under car wheels, it hardens over time, más. – an incantation muttered over millenia requiring little maintenance. shaping our thoughts. Such are the roads of the first world. The iron for the wall was mined in the M states bordering with Canada. I want to master the art of the pictogram, he says. But the dwellings there are transient Not that long ago, the land was cleared It is the earliest form of writing wooden-framed and lighter of its people, wildlife and forests. is uncontaminated by the misers, the drive for accumulation as if to be filled with Migrants from Europe fed the logs down the rivers created with the rise of agriculture. cushions and the crinkle of food wrappers laid the train tracks and some child’s quiet voice in a corner of the room peeled away life on the topsoil The letter M, for example, is the pictogram of a wave mouthing bloodlet the earth to build we forget where it comes from, it loses all meaning and I’ll huff this line of steel we write it over and over without ever thinking of water and I’ll puff. marking the limits of possession. or how maritime and motherly, muro y morada are of one essence. On the other side of the line Praying from Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth the asphalt grows crocodile-skinned. which built an empire of steel As he speaks, I watch the surfers glide along the lip of the perfect breakers Pockmarked and permeable, repeating that this was progress almost for the whole line of the horizon it can cope with earthquakes away from universal squalor before they topple over into the sea and melt in the sun. we were able to steal our eyes away like tiny plastic soldiers. Initially it’s cheaper to lay from the impoverishment but has a shorter lifespan. of the lands That night we slept hearing the waves crash onto the rocks Such the roads of the third world. —now empty red pits and in the morning, we knew we were rocks too. gaping red wounds Our hearts, hardened lava. But here, our houses as far as the eye can see. you can tell by just looking at them The Pacific had smoothed round windows through us are made of cement, heavy as pyramids and like a Barbara Hepworth sculpture as if to hold us at home we were made whole for longer. by what we lack. n

26 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 27 Acceleration which has in the process devastated ecosystems, modified the climate, eroded the BETWEEN LIMIT soils, contaminated water… And the massive wildfires, extreme weather events, droughts, economic AND DESIRE: crises and many other things which today flood our newspapers are no more than symptoms of that grave terminal illness which is the collapse STRATEGIC of our civilisation. A collapse which we should not understand as a one-off or single event, but rather as a long process of decomposition DIRECTIONS IN which will affect different countries unequally, and within those, will be felt much more by the most vulnerable parts of the population. THE COLLAPSE Without understanding this, it is very unlikely that we will be able to really build a politics that puts life, OF INDUSTRIAL freedom, equality and the stability of Gaia before everything else. At the end of the day, trying to return to a normal which never was is the CIVILISATION very opposite of what we need today. Stability won’t return, growth will Adrián Almazán and Luis González Reyes argue that hardly anyone has understood not continue and our way of life is taking its dying breaths. We are facing the Covid-19 pandemic not as an isolated and exceptional event, but as a single limits and damages caused by our dynamics of overshoot which make it moment in a much broader process: ecosocial collapse. not only undesirable, but impossible to carry on as though nothing were HE GREAT SHOCK caused The great problem we face is wrong. And ours is not merely a by the total lockdown in spring that, at a deep level, hardly anybody technical problem. The experts will of 2020 becomes more distant has understood that the Covid-19 be not be able to discover a new with each passing day. For pandemic is not an isolated and technology that can resolve this, nor months now, we have been exceptional event, but rather a single will State bureaucrats find some fail- Tliving a “new normal” which is moment in a much broader process: proof policy which will allow us to neither new, given that it continues ecosocial collapse. continue with our lives as usual. Ours to put capital and growth before life, is a global and profoundly political nor in any way normal. Rather than problem. What is at stake is our way grasping the opportunity presented “We struggle of life (which necessarily will have to by those months of lockdown when change radically), and those who will everything came to a standstill to see that the bring about that change are people, to undertake a radical change of supposed normality organised collectively. direction, our societies have held on to fear and continuity, desperately constituted by the struggling to ensure that everything “Stability won’t remains the same and – as soon western societies return, growth will as possible – returns to normality, of the second half regularity and stability. not continue. We are We empathise with the suffering of the 20th century of many families and businesses facing limits and which have found themselves are the true obligated to confront situations of damages caused tremendous precarity due to the exception.” policies of governments such as by our dynamics the Spanish State. Nothing could Although nearly everything which of overshoot which be further from our intention than has happened in recent years makes to suggest that these should be it clear, we struggle to see that make it not only abandoned or left unsupported. the supposed normality (opulent However, it would be a serious societies, which grow perpetually undesirable, but mistake were we to fail to see and have guaranteed access to that if the particular ways of fossil fuels) constituted by western impossible to living, producing, consuming, societies in the second half of the transportation etc. generated by 20th century are the true exception. carry on as though industrial capitalist societies are to It is these wealthy and nothing were continue, then suffering in the near unthinking societies which have future will be much greater and squandered our fossil patrimony wrong.” >> probably affect all of humanity. in order to support a Great

28 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 29 Despite the fact that those in power destroying and fighting, to self- the State and the market offer us. scenario a new kind of work would The great battle in the field of desire directly from the tree they care for. refuse to recognise it, major social “Our obligation limit ourselves in the embrace of We cannot because a true evaluation “The construction also emerge, one which is today in the coming years or decades But that is not enough. We need and metabolic shifts await us in the is to articulate Gaia, and at the same time, we will of limits prevents us from doing so, of emergency almost non-existent, of communal is not going to be over whether to encourage desire recovering near future. The Covid-19 pandemic be better able to defend ourselves but above all, because the human work geared towards satisfying there is a transition towards a our capacity to dream of other has helped us to understand what a politics which against the inevitable attacks of being has shown throughout their landings in the basic needs. A type of work which, sustainable economy. That will economies and societies, something these disruptions might look like, the elites and the States. Therefore, history (as well as in the present) potentially, has much more life- happen inevitably. The dispute will which today seems almost but the worst is yet to come. In the navigates between expropriating, sharing work and that they can live with dignity collapse will have giving meaning than paid work. be what kind of transition triumphs. impossible because capitalism coming years, everything points to wealth, occupying or guaranteeing a and in harmony with nature. From our point of view, a scenario On one side, the ecofascist or and the State, having enclosed our us living through energy scarcity limits and desire. living minimum for all who need it That, therefore, is a horizon of to navigate between capable of stimulating desire for ecoauthoritarian: maintain high economic and political autonomy, which could transform into food Although it seems are basic policies. Lighting the way desire anthropologically possible the cracks and grey many people. living standards for the elites, have also cut the wings of our shortages, problems accessing fuel, towards a force which constructs but and a reality for many human At the moment, desires for for which they will embrace capacity to imagine other worlds. industrial shutdowns etc. We will that we may have also defends, setting in motion an societies, such as for example some zones of the system, the most part still pivot between conservationist discourses and the For that reason, in order to be able also have to live with an increasingly exercise of collective self-limitation Indigenous Peoples. continuing as usual in the economic defence of “our own”. This is what to dream big we must at the same unstable climate which, no matter forgotten, last spring which can come to be an expression Why are the siren calls of new through disputes, sphere, but accompanied by a the Nazi party did and what the time materialise our dreams. That what we do, will never return to of freedom and social autonomy. In proposals such as the Green New consciousness that times are European far-right is starting to do. is, construct autonomous lives the state of equilibrium which all taught us something: this study, we have outlined a route Deal (GND) so persuasive? Precisely and take as given changing, and an ecological The Handmaiden’s Tale would be a which enable us to fantasize about agrarian human societies enjoyed map for how this could be done for because they claim to be able to transition that would enable horizon of desire (for the elites) in autonomous societies and, on the until the present day. Heatwaves, it is possible to the Spanish economy during the bring together the need to accept that conflict is us to live more or less as we do a territory rendered lifeless by the way, position ourselves better to droughts, super-storms and put people before decade 2020 – 2030. limits with the widespread desire inevitable.” currently, exemplified in the public Capitalocene. defend them when the moment hurricanes, scarcity of fresh-water, amongst western “middle classes” discourse of the GND (if not in its The other great horizon of arrives to do so. n melting glaciers… All of this has capital.” that almost nothing in our way of hypothetical materialisation). The desire is that which is made up of come to stay, and to challenge our “The more life need change. By all accounts a Thus, the construction of emergency Trumps bet on the fossil economy, the sharing of work and wealth, Originally published at: .elsaltodiario. urban model, our industrialised false solution, since the reality is landings in the collapse will have which is without doubt the most simplicity, slowness, pleasure com/ecologia/entre-limite-deseo- food system and our management Let’s begin with the “easy” part: autonomy we that our desire to not have to change to navigate between the cracks productive, at the same time that derived from dense social fabrics lineas-estrategicas-colapso- of water. putting human life ahead means, have, the more ourselves leads us to underestimate and grey zones of the system, they strengthen the borders and or intimate connection with civilizacion-industrial Faced with all this, what will in the first place, assuming and the scale of the exercise in self- through disputes, and take as imaginaries of confrontation which nature. That connection based we do? Move ahead as though interiorising the limits of Gaia. capable we will be limitation which we have before us, given that conflict is inevitable. are essential to maintain their power in knowledge, work and the love nothing were happening? Keep Understanding that the illusions even the exercise of self-limitation On that path, there is no single in a structure which is cracking. derived from both, as the neo-rural alive at all costs a suicidal industrial of infinite growth, unlimited of guaranteeing which would be involved in any or good solution. Nobody has an They know how to read our times, movements teach us. It is that which capitalism? Our obligation is to abundance and nature as an inert minimally realistic GND. As infallible solution. For that landing according to their own interests, would enable us to materialise a articulate a politics which navigates object are inadequate frameworks social needs without we explore in this study, a GND to succeed, we cannot assume that better than it would appear. Those socioeconomic transformation between limits and desire. Although for understanding what is destroying and which approaches the emissions the transformation of desire, and who defend the GND start from a inspired by degrowth, relocalisation, it seems that we may have forgotten, happening to us: we need a New cuts recommended by the IPCC therefore ways of life, are beyond consciousness, at least partial, of integration into natural cycles last spring taught us something: it is Earth Culture. fighting, to self-limit (which we know are ecologically possible or realistic political the socioecological crisis, but they (which is to say, an agroecological possible to put people before capital. But that limit is also a limit insufficient), as well as promoting action. Our obligation is, instead, make promises impossible to fulfil rather than industrial economy) And that teaching is essential if we to our own action, which must ourselves in renewables would also have to invest to politicise desire and connect and which do not match up to the and the distribution of wealth and want the opportunity to collapse become a form of collective in agroecology, decimate the private with the old aspiration of social ecological challenges, which are power. This is the horizon of desire better, to guarantee dignified, free self-limitation. This is the best the embrace car, strongly restrict international emancipation. Ours must also be not only about energy, but much which is currently most hidden, and equal lives in the new balance recipe to avoid all forms of aviation (tourism)… In short, an an anthropological transformation, more complex. They deploy a least articulated and most interlaced we have pushed Gaia towards. But authoritarianism, including that of Gaia, and authentic overturning of neoliberal and thus we cannot accept that horizon of desire with a very short with other contradictory desires, that is not enough, because we which has accompanied the State at the same time, subjectivity. the triumph of neoliberalism in range and high potential to cause but which probably exists more than have to put life before people. Life of Alarm [translator’s note: decreed For that reason, it seems highly that sphere is irreversible. Or, if we disenchantment. we think. It is that which drives is not only human, it encompasses by the Spanish State in response to we will be better improbable that a minimally do so, we will have to accept that those who long for early retirement all the other animal and plant the Covid-19 pandemic]. Are we realistic GND, which implies the ecocide followed by genocide or who use their holidays to go on species. Only in that whole, the life capable of making choosing that able to defend profound transformations in our which could unfold under the worst “The great battle pilgrimage. It is the desire which of every single species is possible. which is indispensable for life a way of life, can become an option scenarios of ecosocial collapse are leads many to abandon the city We urgently need to dissolve our collective undertaking? Frugality ourselves against for parliamentary majorities in also inevitable. in the field of desire and return to the land. It is also deeply-rooted anthropocentrism and modesty are values which must the inevitable the short term (we will see what Only if we are capable of longing in the coming years the desire of those who decide to to put Gaia as a whole front and come to substitute competition and happens in the mid-term in a to live in another way, only if we work in cooperatives and escape the centre; as Jorge Reichmann says, we ambition. Living well with less, we attacks of the dramatically changing scenario such place the weaving of close social or decades is not absurd impositions of growth. This need to construct a political ethics say in social ecology. At least with as that which we are living in). It is relations, time, fresh air, nature, will be the only desire compatible capable of looking beyond the walls less energy, less consumption, less elites and the even less probable that any State will meaningful work, and contact going to be over with what we might consider of the human city. inequality, less injustice, less socio- have the capacity or desire to make with the land before consumption, good lives when the lives which ecological destruction. States.” it reality, because not for nothing do money or commodities will we be whether there is we previously called good (those This also means placing limits they depend for their functioning able to land in the least traumatic a transition towards of consumerism) are no longer on those who condemn us with But this limit will never arrive if it on taxes and financial markets way possible. We need to work to feasible. their disproportionate hubris. is presented as a logical argument, which, in turn, can only divert reconstruct that which Mumford a sustainable It is vital to make that horizon We must unite amongst equals as an unquestionable political funds as a result of the reproduction called the neolithic, and which of desire grow now. Failure to do to build autonomous institutions conclusion. Our action has to of capital. What is even more today we can understand as a way of economy. That so will leave a gap in which the that, on the one hand, free us from navigate between limits and desire, important, the ecological struggles life that is communal, sustainable, ecofascist desire can grow. And the expropriation which the elites because the latter is the only thing advocating for austere sufficiency just and autonomous. That is a key will happen nothing makes desire grow more impose on us through salaries capable of activating and moving and redistribution seem to be far battle at the level of desire. In the than seeing other people living and management. But which also us. A desire which, in turn, will be from being in a position to set the report we cited earlier, the only inevitably. The happily. We need to encourage force a redistribution of all the found at the root of the conflict rhythm for social coordination. scenario capable of respecting dispute will be what broad social sectors to want to wealth unjustly accumulated by necessarily entailed by the scenario ecological limits was that in which imitate those who work in a these elites. Therefore, ending which we are outlining. we worked fewer hours in total. Of kind of transition cooperative with dignified working wage work and constructing food, We cannot assume that power, that work time, we would spend conditions doing socially necessary energy, technological and political neoliberalism, industrial capitalism more time doing caring work in triumphs.” work, those who live in ecological sovereignty. The more autonomy we have won once and for all the battle the household and less time in paid buildings designed to maximise have, the more capable we will be of of desire, making us into beings employment, either in the public friendship and mutual aid, or those guaranteeing social needs without capable only of desiring that which or private sector. Morever, in that who eat delicious fruit picked

30 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 31 ON DEGROWTH AND AN ECONOMY OF CARE EGROWTH THINKING AND ideas In times of Brexit it is more important than ever to share ideas between largely evolved in a European context. At LESS, we believe that in times of Brexit it grassroots movements in Scotland and the rest of Europe to understand the is more important than ever to share ideas between grassroots movements in Scotland challenges we face in late stage capitalism, identify opportunities to resist Dand the rest of Europe to better understand the common challenges we face in late stage these and develop practical solutions. LESS editor Svenja Meyerricks spoke to capitalism, and to identify opportunities to resist these and to develop practical solutions. LESS academic, author and activist Andrea Vetter. Illustration by Tarneem Al Mousawi editor Svenja Meyerricks spoke to academic, author and activist Andrea Vetter about her work somewhat recently – last year before that of Ariel Salleh, Maria Mies, Veronika and thinking in relation to how degrowth ideas covid hit, a Degrowth UK Summer School Bennholdt-Thomsen and Vandana Shiva evolved in Germany and beyond. was going to take place in Leeds, and around the notion of ecofeminism and the International Degrowth Conference subsistence. in Manchester – which is now happening I think these are very important LESS: Tell us a bit about your current work, online this year. But overall, there has been contributions to the roots of degrowth and what you are passionate about. a relatively slow uptake of these ideas. thinking, and the idea of what another Perhaps you could tell us more about how economy could be centred on. It could be AV: For more than ten years now, my work the debate has been shaping up in Germany centred around care – such as land care has been centred on socioecological and continental Europe? and care for people. And in Germany, that transformation – thinking about critical debate really gained momentum, in the ecofeminism and degrowth and our AV: My own dissertation research was about year of 2010 , when two female economists, economy, and also trying out positive ways convivial and degrowth technologies. I read Swiss Irmi Seidl and Angelika Zahrnt, who of being together in community. I am a lot of articles and stuff from the 1970s. was chairperson of BUND or Friends of the always trying to combine theoretical work Even then, there was a very lively kind Earth Germany, published a book about with practical and activist approaches and of degrowth debate in German speaking Postwachstumsgesellschaft1 or post growth balance them in my life. countries which, of course, didn’t happen society. Currently, I’m teaching on an under the term “degrowth”, but as growth interdisciplinary Masters programme in critique and alternative living. It was LESS: The connection with feminist radical participatory transformation design. basically very close to what we discuss today economics is interesting. In Scotland, The students all want to bring about change, as degrowth. And it also was one important feminist economist Ailsa McKay emphasised which makes it inspiring to work with them. strand that led to the establishment of the care in economics and challenged the I’m also thinking about how to implement Green Party in Germany, which in the dogma of growth at any cost. She brought transformation studies more broadly in a beginning of the 1980s was a movement this perspective to the 2014 independence German university landscape, because I for alternative living not based on ideas campaign, although she sadly died before think that this is now very much needed. I of growth and profit. But then, this more the referendum. The Scottish Government realised this when I was writing the book radical part of the party “lost” and the more has been engaging with some of the ideas Degrowth/ Postwachstumi together with my reformist powers gained more power in this around wellbeing, although the official long-time friend, Matthias Schmelzer. It’s an party, and these ideas were dismissed then. trajectory is still on “sustainable economic introduction to degrowth which was now I think the events in 1989 played a growth”, this somewhat diverges from the translated into English and will be published big role in the slowing down of this early neoliberal hardliners of the Westminster by Verso in 2021. growth critique debates. The Soviet bloc Government. And now there’s the Wellbeing I don’t think that what we need now crashed, so there was no more belief in Economy Alliance, who campaigns for at this point in history is more in-depth somehow taming this capitalist society. softening Scotland’s economic goals further analysing of what’s going wrong, because Also, in the 1980s there was a turn towards at a policy level. Could you tell us a bit more already we know so much about that. In a neoliberalism in the UK. about how degrowth ideas were engaged nutshell, our whole society and economy The debates of alternative living and with in Germany – in academia, in wider is centred around profit, and that is killing growth critique in the late 1970s until mid society and in activist movements? everything. From there, you can go into 1980s were followed by a big gap. And then different directions and try to change that they were taken up again in the beginning AV: We organised a big conference in 2011, very principle, and we will arrive at many of the 2000s through the degrowth debate with alter-globalisation network Attac2 different systems. So I really like it now to in France. And in between, there was only and over 50 other organisations, and 3000 work on trying to design and bring about the ecofeminist debate that went on with people attended. It was more of a political new solutions, and also to re-establish older thinking about societies without growth debate in the beginning. It was not so much ones – to really take action, which I feel is in a very productive way, but this was not a debate that happened at the universities. very important. taken up in the newly launched degrowth I think that came more from Spain when debate coming from France and Spain in the Institute of Environmental Science and LESS: In Scotland and the UK, there has the beginning of the 2000s. Because of Technology of the Autonomous University not been the same level of debate around course they were mainly driven by men like of Barcelona was established, which hosted degrowth as there has been in Germany, Serge Latouche who, like it often happens, research and teaching around degrowth, and France, Spain and many other European didn’t know about these feminist works or also from France. And slowly it was possible countries. Although this has changed just didn’t engage with them – works like to talk about these things in German >>

32 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 33 universities, too. But at the beginning, it was really make a difference. Because we’ve seen AV: Yes, actually I’m thinking a lot about the ecological systems will collapse, not everything who can decide on things – and they are not an academic discourse. in the last years all these bigger bodies of question whether it is possible to transform will collapse, of course – and a lot of places in “…the more important just ignoring the scientific facts on climate Only recently degrowth got some nation states and international coordination institutions that are already there, or the world, a lot of systems already collapsed. question is not, where change. And I really think this somehow academic merits, because people the age failing badly on topics like climate change whether it is necessary to build up new So it’s not about that there will be a makes for a big debate shift for degrowth of Matthias and me, who are now around and social justice. And emissions going up institutions everywhere. collapse in like 20 years. I’m also a bit should I start taking action, discussions to go into. Because now we 40, did their Masters thesis or the doctoral and resource extraction going up. Of course it’s not a yes or no question; we irritated by these discourses about deep can say, yes we have seen that it would thesis on the topic, somehow advanced this Despite all these talks and all these have to do both. I definitely find more joy in adaptation that predict near-term social what has the biggest effect, be possible to bring about the necessary debate in this academic system and made meetings, the system change we need building up new alliances and institutions collapse, where a white guy who thought changes, but it is not done. What do we do it possible to talk about it. But it was only just doesn’t happen. For me, it really feels than in transforming the old ones. But this is that everything is open to him, because he’s but: am I willing to give with that? very rarely taken up by older people, or it’s more empowering and like having more maybe a question of personal taste, of what’s a white academic guy, suddenly realises, all my life to work for this It depends on whether we are socialists just that we grew up and brought it there. impact to work on this scale, where it’s very nearer to your heart. So I can’t answer that “Oh, there are forces bigger than me. Now or anarchists or whatever position we take And I think in all European continental much about finding new alliances – with question for everybody, but I really feel that I’m falling into a deep depression, and can transformation that is towards state action, but this is an interesting countries, as I can see so far, the movement local enterprises, for example, like small there’s a lot of power in connecting different do nothing!” And I think, “Oh dude, what insight. And also all these billions that are has this double character of being discussed handicraft enterprises. Many of the problems places, and people on the grassroots who are did you think this world is about?” deeply needed” spent now to prop up the old economy that in academia and being very closely we face are very similar, even if we come trying to build up new kinds of networks, You know, feminist struggle has been could have been used for really important linked to political movements. Also at the from different political ideas. Also in the interpersonal relationships and the economy going on for several thousand years now, investments into a green and social economy Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, we try to former GDR, there’s such a vast backdrop in their places. And it’s so interesting to since patriarchy was established. There were – it just doesn’t happen. The old fossil fuel connect some political or social movements of subsistence knowledge, because it was ask how we can build reliable networks ancestors fighting it before us, and there subsidies continue as usual. with the degrowth debate – for example, an economy that was not very abundant. between places. Also because it’s not small will be our children fighting it after us, and We should definitely take action, but The covid crisis narrows down a possible we connected the climate justice movement And so people are very used to making things we’re dealing with, if we are taking we are just a small piece in this big chain we should also tend to our gardens, and political window that was in sight for with the degrowth debate, which I think the best of what is there, and they very the scientific forecasts seriously of what of people trying to live a decent life, bring we should also build our local alliances the Fridays for Future movement. It was succeeded really well. much appreciate if younger people do this. will happen with ongoing climate change. some justice and be good mothers to the with our neighbours. And we should also gaining momentum with broader parts of So there are interesting alliances between I mean, it’s likely that in a decade or two, beings around us. work for different procurement laws that society all over Europe, and also in many LESS: Among Scottish activist groups and in elderly people and younger people in this a lot of places where we now live won’t be I think it’s about stepping out of both of make it possible that, for example, when other countries – to raise money and to parts of academia, the idea of degrowth is post socialist environment, which I think habitable in the same way as they are now. these narratives. Of this one narrative that there is communal money spent, it is not think about things like the Green New Deal being adopted from other parts of Europe, is really interesting. But we also struggle There are some scenarios where, everybody just seeks out their own interest, spent on the cheapest companies, but on which, yes, is still aimed at green growth, and contextualised in the history of thought with right wing issues, and now we founded for example, the region we live in in and there will be big fights, and we should organisations or enterprises that work but also from a degrowth perspective, we and activism in Scotland. Here there’s a a campaign called Dörfer Gegen Rechts Brandenburg will get so dry that the harvest gather guns. And the other narrative that towards social or ecological goals. definitely need a lot of investment in green big contrast between the Gaelic speaking [villages against the far right]. Because there of the crops and harvest will shrink by 80% we can succeed or fail, and now it’s about We should also go into these very technologies. But this window of political Highlands, where conversations have were a lot of right wing extremists meeting from what we have now – which really succeeding to stop global warming. And it’s technical points, because they are important, opportunity now closed with covid, because perhaps more of a focus on regeneration in a nearby village from the AfD [Alternative means that there’s nothing to eat. And we only about “yes or no”. There won’t be a yes because they decide what is happening with you can’t give out the money twice. And I and on preserving indigenous practices für Deutschland], our far-right party. don’t know if this scenario will come true, or or no – we will maybe succeed in slowing it the available money. All the divestment think there will be such a big shutdown of such as crofting, and places like the Central I am convinced that fighting climate if the other scenario will come true that the down a little bit. campaigns – I think they’re absolutely good cultural initiatives and a lot of things such Belt, where there’s a focus on downscaling change has to come together with fighting Gulf Stream will collapse, and then it will be ideas. And this may seem complicated, as public money – it will be so hard in the the economy beyond Green New Deal sexism and racism. This is what degrowth is so cold that nothing will grow either. LESS: Yes, I think a lot of the time there’s because there are so many tiers to engage in. coming decade, and I just don’t know what narratives. about: to help building a good life for all. All these different apocalyptic scenarios the perception that if we cannot sustain a But it also makes it very easy, because from will come out of it. have a certain likelihood. And I see nothing privileged life, then we have nothing left. where you are, you can just begin to act. I The list of system-relevant jobs was also AV: In Germany the context is also very different LESS: It would be interesting to hear your on a political international scale or state And that means to talk from a point of think the more important question is not, interesting. For example, to get childcare in depending on where you are located. I live perspective on how to build alliances scale that will stop this development of extreme privilege. But now there will be where should I start taking action, what has Germany during lockdown, there was a list in a small village between Berlin and the across different places. Particularly in the heading for three degrees or four degrees or COP26 negotiations in Glasgow this year. the biggest effect, but: am I willing to give all that was updated every week – which kinds Polish border. I live in a community and context of Brexit, there’s a lot of scope to whatever. I can’t see anything. Maybe I am And while there’s rightly a lot of cynicism my life to work for this transformation that of jobs are system relevant. And this is a arts project called Haus des Wandels3 [house build grassroots alliances among people pessimistic – I don’t know. around this – do we totally disengage from is deeply needed, wherever I am, and with very interesting entry point for a degrowth of transformation]. This is a very marginal who work on similar issues across the For me this is also a question of these sorts of pressure points? Or perhaps whatever means I do have? debate in terms of, what kind of economy do region, and the topic of social justice and continent. And there’s arguably more need really being able to look into the future it’s not about all or nothing? Actually, that is what I’m expecting from we want? Do we want an economy centred inclusion is very important here, because for that now, because the old institutional somehow in a good way, to build up trust myself and from other people as well – around care? people had very bad experiences during the connections have been severed and we have and relationships between each other and AV: Yes, of course. We don’t know anything which is a lot to ask for. Now we have entry points to say, last few decades when a lot of infrastructure to build our own European alliances now, between our places and find, “Okay, I know about the future. In this society, or all everybody knows now that there are was just shut down – buses or public from the bottom up. there’s places I can go and you can go”, societies, we’re at a point of not knowing. LESS: The task at hand may be daunting – many jobs in the care sector that are very services, and a lot of cultural institutions basically. Because we just don’t know what And I think we should acknowledge this but in the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estés: important for our economy – they are very after the end of the GDR. will happen and which of our places will still and not pretend to know what the best next “Do not lose heart. We were made for these system-relevant, because without them, Although these institutions were led by be habitable. step is. We just don’t know – and that’s okay. times.”4 However, the ongoing pandemic people just die. And these are not the GDR officials enforcing an official culture, I don’t want to sound like a prepper! I So it’s good to fight the tides and to do the certainly hasn’t made it easier to connect well-paid jobs, but the jobs of people in nonetheless there was dance, music and think what really distinguishes also degrowth things that need to be done. Because they all to each other and make change happen. supermarkets, and of nurses, and so on. I literature in nearly every village. And then thinking about being realistic around these could make a difference, and maybe will. But Beyond the trauma, what is to be learned think we should focus on care much more in there was almost nothing left – less work, “What can socioecological scientific climate scenarios is that it’s about we can’t identify that there is now the one from this collective experience for the degrowth debates, and also link it to other less public services, less culture. This is stopping the cultural narratives underlying thing that we should all unite under. degrowth movement? debates. This is a very interesting point that really something we have to deal with, and development or our society that there are only individualistic There is a discussion around Andreas comes out of the covid experience: there is which also leads to problems with the far people seeking out their own interests and Malm, a very productive author from AV: We have learned that when the state life-sustaining work to be done. How can right. I think all these issues are very much transformation mean on fighting each other all the time. Which Sweden, who is bringing forth a debate identifies something as a crisis, it will we organise this, and how can we centre our connected. In our house, we do a lot of a regional level? Because brought us into this kind of mess, and in about ecoleninism – that there should be mobilise lots of money. It would be possible economy not around the least important regional networking with other projects and popular scientific and dystopian narratives, an avant garde of people who should be to really tackle the climate change issue if things, but around the most important other people wanting to establish some kind I really think that the like the preppers use them, it is just prolonged pressuring and fighting forces of destruction. there were the political will to do so. But things? n of social ecological regional development. into an apocalyptic future that still has the In Leninism, there is an avant garde of apparently it is not so. This is a topic that I’ve been very much region, and the communal same narrative, just with climate chaos on people who know what to do. And I really The facts are very much out in the open, interested in the last year or two. What top. And this doesn’t make any sense. Because think this is wrong – these are new forms and there’s a political discussion to not can socioecological development or or city level – these are the this is the story we have to get out of, and we of patriarchial ideas that do not lead to the do anything real against climate change. I transformation mean on a regional level? levels where even a few have to see what else there is. I think a lot of pluriversalistic world that we so deeply need. think this made it very apparent especially Because I really think that the region, and it is about building trust and new economies And I think we should engage as a degrowth for young people of the Fridays for Future Notes the communal or city level – these are the centred around care work, and about seeing movement in fighting against coal, and in movement, for example, to see that there is 1 konzeptwerk-neue-oekonomie.org/english dedicated people can really 2 attac.org levels where even a few dedicated people can the abundance that is still there. Even if some fighting against burning oil. an elder generation in the political sphere 3 hausdeswandels.wordpress.com/about make a difference.” 4 mavenproductions.com/letter-to-a-young-activist

34 LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland LESS : A Journal of Degrowth in Scotland 35 WE’VE HAD ENOUGH We are facing climate, economic and social crisis. Growing our economy is costing us our future. THERE IS ENOUGH There is enough for all of us if we choose to live differently. TOGETHER, WE ARE ENOUGH! Together we can find ways to move through times of crisis and beyond.

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