The Barcelona Action Circles is envisioned to become a global catalyst for post-growth transformations.
The project brings together motivated stakeholders from various sectors who advocate for socio-environmental justice and seek transformational change in their respective sectors, movements or political contexts.
R&Di holds separate intra-sectorial discussions (Circles) with the aim of building relationships among participants and joint plans for collective intervention in the ‘cracks’ of the current socio-political system.
The goal of each Circle is to develop actionable policies, alliances and implementation strategies for a just transition towards a post-growth society. Each Circle is facilitated by a separate facilitator, rotationally moderated from within the group of participants. They feature interventions by renowned post-growth academics and activists. Meetings of all the Circles are held online, culminating with an in-person meeting of participants from all Circles in Barcelona.
Currently, the Action Circle on Mediterranean Ecofeminism, the Action Circle on Labour Movement, and the Degrowth Media Circle are all in the meeting and strategising phase of the circle. Meanwhile, the Action Circle on Post-Growth Finance ended their monthly meetings and are currently working on a final report.
The circles
Degrowth Media Circle
The Degrowth Media Circle is a training-and-action programme aimed at building a network of degrowth communicators who consciously organise together to push a post-capitalist, post-growth agenda across media and public debate.
The program, coordinated in collaboration with podcaster and post-growth advocate Michael Mezzatesta, brings participants together with experienced media figures in skill-sharing sessions and workshops to catalyze strategic political action in mainstream and social media spaces.
This is the opportunity for social media figures, journalists, advocates and others with a strong media presence to join a new network of degrowth communicators, strengthen their capacity to intervene in public debate, shape narratives, and counter reactionary discourses.
Mediterranean Eco-Feminism Circle
The Mediterranean Eco-Feminism Circle aims to build a regional ecofeminist alliance and agenda for a post-growth transition.
It brings together influential degrowth-aligned ecofeminist activists from across the Mediterranean in order to present, discuss and learn about each other’s feminist and climate justice struggles in the region. Through the regular gathering of activists in a safe facilitated space, the Circle aims to enable the identification of common but differentiated struggles, on the basis of which to draw a collective regional agenda for a just transition to a post-growth society that organises economic activity in order to guarantee a healthy, decent life for all, and that tackles patriarchal, neocolonial, racist and capitalistic structures of oppression.
Funded by the Mediterranean Women’s Fund.
Action Circle on Labour and Degrowth
The Action Circle on Labour and Degrowth brings together committed labour unionists and democratic economy workers from across the world to discuss how can organised transnational labour action help transcend the perceived opposition between labour and environmental justice, overcoming existing barriers to adopting a post-growth agenda.
Through the regular gathering of unionists and workers, the Circle aims to enable the sharing and documentation of effective action strategies used across the labour movement to anticipate labour injustices brought about by the ecological crisis and transition, and to support worker-led productive reconversions towards ecologically resilient and socially useful productive activities.
Ultimately, the Circle aims to create a permanent space and platform to share knowledge, campaign, build relations, and coordinate transnational action for a transition towards a post-growth economy that provides universal wellbeing in an ecologically sustainable manner, that is worker-driven, and that is premised on material and energetic convergence and justice between the Global South and the Global North.
Post-Growth Finance Circle
The Action Circle of Finance Leaders gathers around the same table finance stakeholders from the private sector, public sector, civil society, and academia who advocate for socio-environmental justice and seek transformational change in their industry from all around the world.
The Circle reflects on the financial consequences and policies needed for a post-growth transition in the Global North, considering also the needs of the Global South. It explores the consequences of degrowth and post-growth for the financial sector (outside-in), and vice versa: what kind of financial sector do we need to put universal wellbeing beyond economic growth and before profit (inside-out), thus building on the concept of double materiality. The Circle will reflect on the policies needed to conduct this process as orderly as possible, both from the level of public actors and individual financial institutions. Beyond ideas and proposals, we aspire to identify leverage points within the financial system where small interventions can have big changes and strategize and organize among participants on how they can push for such changes within their realm of influence.
The Action Circle examines and maps what stakeholders could do and are already doing, individually or collectively, to move towards a post-growth economy.
In collaboration with Sustainable Finance Lab.
Final report showing the findings of the Circle out soon.
