Schedule 9th International Degrowth Conference

In the Anthropocene, all earthbound beings habit a human-dominated Earth. While some humans have benefitted greatly from the processes of colonization and domination, others have suffered, or become annihilated, not to speak of most non-human beings, who have arguably been hit the hardest. While it is clear that not all humans, cultures, and societies, have equally committed to the process of colonizing the Earth, from a non-anthropocentric point of view humans do have a colonial past and burden to carry (some more and others less so). Considering this, we argue that emancipatory projects that overlook the non-anthropocentric point of views, and do not aim at inter-species emancipation, might achieve a short-term success, such as the Worker’s Movement did in the 19th and 20th century, but are destined to fail in the longer term as the ecological crisis (as a consequence of the biospherical colonization) affects all earthbound inhabitants. The priorisation of human needs, wants and desires – as opposed to inter-species diversity, and joint emancipation – will likely further the expansion of capitalism or other forms of productivism, and the insatiable development of technology, and still deepen the human domination, and the ecological crisis. Therefore, and to find pathaways for joint and inter-species decolonialization, degrowth policies and practives have to push beyond human interests to navigate the just transitions. We also suggest that the non-anthropocentric degrowth policies and practices may be informed by various indigenous cosmologies, which have seldom been ‘anthropocentric’, and less prone to colonize the Earth.

Info

Day: 2023-08-31
Start time: 12:30
Duration: 00:15
Room: ZV-KC-Cres
Type: Paper Presentation
Theme: Feminist, decolonial, anti-racist and anti-ableist ecologies

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