Projects

The activities of our collective range from research and education to activism and international campaigns. We further try to support and collaborate with social movements of similar values.

Here you can find a full list of all our projects and cooperations, present and past.

 

Current projects
  • Basic Education 

This project started in the fall of 2018 together with Gresc@ research group (UAB-Education Faculty) to explore how introducing degrowth in school curricula can enrich environmental education for social change. During these last years, several seminars were organised bringing together researchers, teachers from environmental science and secondary school teachers, the results of which were presented at the Congreso Internacional de Educación Crítica e Inclusiva in September 2019. In September 2020 we will be part of the course “Educació, Sosteniblitat i Consum”, introducing degrowth and political ecology to Pedagogy and Social Education students.

 

  • Degrowth Day

The Global Degrowth Day takes place on the first Saturday in June in many different countries. See info here: https://www.degrowth.info/en/globalday/. In Barcelona, the local “hub” of R&D, a group of people, partly belonging to R&D organised the first degrowth day in 2019. We celebrated the day at the L’Horta Alliberada, a little oasis in the neighbourhood of Sants, where activists have occupied a vacant building lot and created an urban garden. Throughout the day, we enjoyed lots of sun, local food from the cooperative Sana Delicia, talks and debates about degrowth, workshops on direct democracy and bookbinding, an open microphone for poetry, a concert by the band Pitajaya, and a theatre performance about Ende Gelände – an upcoming event of mass civil disobedience against fossil fuel extraction. The day turned out to be a great opportunity for different collectives in Barcelona to meet, whom all focus on different topics like food and energy production, eco-feminism, climate activism, research, or tourism. The exchange of ideas inspired us to organise more meetings like this in the future to coordinate our efforts of the many different ways to work towards a more caring and sustainable society.

 

  • Feminist and Degrowth Alliances (FADA) 

The Feminisms and Degrowth Alliance (FaDA) is a network to explore the common potentials of the two movements and to foster their alliance. Its main objectives are to exchange information, keep in touch, and push for a FaDA agenda. This initiative aims to encourage the reflection of differences, contradictions and limits and to explore and deepen convergences, potentials and strategies of the alliance between feminisms and degrowth.

FaDa has recently launched a manifesto in attendance to the Covid19 pandemic spread. Read it here

 

  • Climate Activism and Demonstrations 

Research & Degrowth supports and continues to participate in the demonstrations of Barcelona and beyond around the topics of the Climate Crisis, Social and Environmental Justice, and Feminism, which are organized by local activist groups such as the “Movement for Climate Justice” (Movimiento por la Justicia Climatica), Fridays for Future Barcelona, and the feminist associations of Barcelona.

 

  • World Social Forum for Transformative Economy 

Barcelona was due to host the 2020 World Social Forum, a convergence of different local and international movements from the alternative economy or transformative economies.

 

  • Commons Camp 

Commons Camp is a series of meetings that builds confluences of commons movements all around the world. Every meeting is an experience of commoning,  exchange, common learning and mobilization oriented to contribute to the commons wherever it takes place. Find more information here

 

  • International Campaign on Care Income

An international campaign that promotes an income for caregivers. Follow the campaign here 


Past projects

  • Degrowth of Aviation Conference

The Stay Grounded network, together with civil society organizations and the Institute for Ecological Sciences and Technology ICTA in Barcelona, organized the conference “Degrowth of Aviation” from the 12th to the 14th of July 2019. The conference brought together 200 people from social movements, NGOs and academia in order to discuss concrete measures and strategies to reduce air traffic. As Barcelona is one of the cities getting overcrowded by tourism, involving serious environmental, health, housing and other social problems, special links were made to movements for a just and environmentally sound tourism. More information on the conference can be found on the Stay Grounded website www.stay-grounded.org

 

  • Social Summit of the COP25 

During the “Cumbre Social por el Clima” (Alternative Social Summit) which took place in December 2019 in Madrid during COP 25, we organized a network meeting titled “Degrowth: Connecting movements against growth dependency”. We invited collectives and individuals active in different struggles and movements to come together around the topics of degrowth and climate justice. Participants self-identified as belonging to four major movements: Climate justice, feminist, anti-racism/anti-colonial, rural movement. The aim of this session was to create connections between different groups that are critical of our systems dependency on economic growth and are looking for alternatives. We introduced the concepts of degrowth, exchanged perspectives between the participants, and brainstormed ideas for future collaborations.

 

  • Degrowth Conference in Barcelona

 

  • Open Letters

Research & Degrowth has initiated and/or contributed to numerous open letters over the past years. Find a selection here:

Post-Growth Open Letter to EU institutions signed by over 200 scientists: “Europe, It’s Time to End the Growth Dependency” – https://degrowth.org/2018/09/06/post-growth-open-letter/

Degrowth: New Roots for the Economy – Re-imagining the Future After the Corona Crisis. Signed by 1,170 scientists, experts, activists, artists etc. and 65 organizations from across the Degrowth spectrum. #NewRoots https://www.degrowth.info/en/open-letter/

Open letter to governments – A care income now! https://globalwomenstrike.net/open-letter-to-governments-a-care-income-now/

 

  • Tours on degrowth 

 

Housing tour – 27 October–4 December 2018

High mortgage debts, homelessness, and destructive urbanisation? There is an alternative — housing for degrowth.

As researchers, practitioners, and activists, Anitra Nelson and François Schneider presented a degrowth narrative of housing at 28 events between the 27th October and 4 December. They crossed 11 countries by train— France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech  Republic, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Spain — at research  institutes, universities, collective housing projects, and central city venues.

The co-edited book that they presented Housing for Degrowth: Principles, Models, Challenges and Opportunities with 25 contributors has been published in Routledge  Environmental Humanities series. At many events, they were joined by other contributors to the collection and local urbanists.

The stories can be found here https://housing.degrowth.net/