Introducing the 2024 Post Growth Fellows
Researchers, activists, artists, and entrepreneurs from a range of backgrounds, fields, and cultures — with a focus on the Global South.
Running from April through November, the 2024 Post Growth Fellowship engages researchers, thought leaders, activists, artists, and entrepreneurs from a range of backgrounds, cultures, histories, and geographies — united by their work in post-capitalist fields and alternative approaches beyond economic growth.
The vision is to open up and broaden the conversation around post-growth ideas, information, and inspiration, in recognition that many alternative approaches are emerging from, and continue to be stewarded in, the Global South and historically marginalized communities across the world.
After two years of deep learnings, we’re thrilled to introduce the next cohort of Post Growth Fellows.
Alison Guzman, a co-designer and co-founder of restorative community-led economies through Maple Chile, has been based in Southern Chile since 2013, collaborating closely with Mapuche communities to develop alternative economic strategies that coexist with forests and wetlands. In her role as Cultural Survival’s Donor Relations Coordinator, she also adeptly manages and nurtures relationships with donors. Fluent in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Guarani, Alison is currently learning Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche people.
Based between the UK and USA, Caroline Sinders is an award-winning critical designer, researcher, and artist. The founder of human rights and design lab, Convocation Research + Design, they have spent the last few years examining the intersections of artificial intelligence, intersectional justice, systems design, harm, and politics in digital conversational spaces and technology platforms.
Crystal Drakes is a scholar-activist, economist, futurist, and creative who currently serves as a non-partisan Senator in Barbados, focused on sustainable development policy. As a doctoral student at the University of the West Indies, she hopes her research on how doughnut economics applies to island ocean economies uncovers alternative development pathways. She is also a cofounder of the Caribbean NGO BlueGreen Initiative Inc. Crystal loves blooming flowers, morning runs, and painting.
Based in Istanbul, Türkiye, Ekin Al is an impact designer who believes in a new economy. He is the founder of the Onarım Atölyesi | Regenerative Impact Space platform, and advocates for post-growth economies. He is passionate about exploring and explaining new business models, ownership, and decision-making mechanisms, and works to be a connecting point among diverse organizations, building bridges between the private sector and activists. Ekin is also the creator and leader of the Doughnut Economics Türkiye Community.
Farah Baba is a Lebanese feminist researcher and organizer. She currently conducts research on security and foreign relations in North Africa, and has authored several opinion and policy pieces on social and political issues. Farah previously worked with migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, and coordinated informal education programs for migrants and refugees at the American University of Beirut.
Born in Mauritius and currently living in India, Ishaan Aggarwal is a systems-thinking ecologist who works with Dr Bayo Akomolafe at Dancing with Mountains in Chennai on emergent fields of postactivism and ontofugitivty supporting translocal communities of practice. He also writes a monthly digest, the climate onion, to support bottom-up advocacies and knowledge building in India. While not glued to digital worlds, he can be found peering to the skies in wonder, smelling textures, and dwelling in his neuro-spiciness.
Born and raised in Timor-Leste, Jenito Santana is a social worker and activist working to promote social change. He’s spent 15 years in the community development and social transformation sector, including with Kdadalak Sulimutuk Institute, a movement promoting social transformation to empower grassroot and peasants’ communities to be independent and drive their own development. Jenito loves traveling and listening to reggae and 80s rock music.
Makarios Anand is a Soul-tivist, collective intelligence facilitator, and audiovisual producer based in Ecuador. He is cofounder of El Nido Casa Abierta and actively articulates the National Network of Alternatives, Mushuk Away Ecuador. He’s currently working passionately on a framework called The Flourishing Compass, exploring what it means to put Life at the Center in all dimensions of existence. He would love to be vegan, but loves cheese so much that he can unfortunately only be vegetarian.
Man Fang, born in China and currently based in Germany is a theoretical researcher at the intersection of risk and emergency governance. She has long devoted herself to applying psychology knowledge into risk governance and communication amongst different levels of government. Man is interested in implanting ethical and moral concern into policy-making procedures to enhance deeper understandings within stakeholders.
Based in South Africa, Mandisa Mbaligontsi is a feminist and self-described urban rural being, finding inspiration in the contradictions and complexities of being present in these different worlds. She works across communications, marketing, facilitation and research, and is passionate about gender inclusion, social justice, and human centered innovations & equitable health economies. When she is not trying to find solutions to complex questions, Mandisa can be found lost in the world of books and obsessing over Ballroom & Latin dance.
Originally from Colombia and based in the Netherlands, Maria Clara Jimenez Assmus is an ecologist and social impact enthusiast, currently the Director of Makers Unite Foundation, where she champions social inclusion through making and co-creating, envisioning a society that embraces newcomers’ creative talents. Over eight years, she supported the establishment of two social enterprises: Makers Unite and United Repair Centre. Maria is also a rapporteur at the International Whaling Commission. She loves pistachio ice cream and walking on the woods.
Mariana Madureira is a feminist Brazilian social entrepreneur. She holds a PhD in Community Psychosociology and Social Ecology, and is the founder of Raízes Sustainable Development, which has supported more than 200 community enterprises to develop business connected to the conservation of socio-biodiversity. She is part of the WellBeing Alliance (WEAll) Sustainability Leaders, Schumacher Institute, and Catalyst 2030.
Miho Soon is an independent researcher and designer from Malaysia researching financial and economic trauma from a systemic perspective. Currently based in Berlin, Germany, she is producing Money Trauma, a documentary podcast series about mechanisms that keep people stuck in cycles of survivalism –and what people and organizations can do to create deeper resilience.
Originally from Iran, Niki Khorasani is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Alberta School of Business in Canada. Her work challenges growth-centric paradigms; she aims to reshape entrepreneurial frameworks, advocating for a more holistic approach by understanding how business practices can become aligned with planetary concerns.
With a diverse background in the Indian subcontinent that nudges his curiosity to imagine a post-colonized paradigm, Neel Tamhane works at the intersection of sustainability and technology, pursuing a Masters in Sustainable Leadership in Denmark. He has primarily been working with energy transitions to enable decentralized and democratized ownership to build a people-led future for energy around the world.
Rendy Aditya Wachid is an Indonesian waste-to-material researcher, sustainable architectural designer, and circular entrepreneur. He is the founder of Parongpong, an innovative zero waste to landfill company, as well as principal architect for a sustainable housing company. He also runs a family resort hotel and organic farm, and is the co-owner of several plant-based organic eateries in Indonesia. On weekends, he’s a full-time father.
Sabrina Meherally is a design strategist and change alchemist based in Canada. Her consultancy, Pause and Effect, is a collective of visionary practitioners guided by a shared vision for inclusive, decolonized, and liberated futures. Rooted in principles of relationality, she views design as a vehicle for liberation and regeneration, and believes that post-growth futures are shaped by what we practice at the smallest scale. She is an auntie who dreams that her niece will live in a world that never steals her laughter, deprives her of naps, or makes her question her worth.
Suzan Joy is a community advocate who is passionate about collaborative actions to support the wellbeing of people and the planet. She is the founder of The Fireplace, a network committed to bringing about emotional healing and economic independence amongst women in Lira, Uganda. Suzan recently took part in the Post Growth Entrepreneurship Incubator, which reaffirmed her commitment to non-extractivism. She enjoys dancing and playing hide-and-seek with her kids — her best hiding spot is in the sweet potato garden!
Based in rural Alabama, on a five-acre plot of land nestled deep in the woods, Tannur Ali is the founder of iLOGIC, which works with cohorts of land stewards to prepare them to meet the challenges of today using the wisdom of our ancestors, elders, and children in the interest of our collective future. As a poet and facilitator, she seeks to build authentic relationships; and as a homesteader and home-school mom, she seeks to learn from the people and experiences that impact her.
Living in Bahrain, Tariq Al-Olaimy is cofounder of an ecosystem of beyond growth initiatives, including 3BL Associates, Public-Planet-Partnerships, Recipes for Wellbeing, Diversity on Board, and Postgrowth.earth. He serves in board and advisory roles with organizations such as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, High-Level Climate Champions, World Economic Forum, 1t.org, and EAT- the science-based platform for food systems transformation.
Hailing from Brazil, Thaís Lopes is a mechatronic engineer and regenerative process designer who is passionate about empowering women to transform caregiving into a thriving economy. As the CEO and founder of Mães Negras do Brasil (Black Mothers of Brazil), she pioneers social technologies that revolutionize the way individuals and organizations approach business. Thais finds peace in bird watching and draws inspiration from her role as a mother.
Uygar Özesmi is an environmental scientist, an Ashoka Senior Fellow, Board Chair of the Prosumer Economy Society, and founder of Good4Trust.org, an online system for creating a prosumer economy for ecological and social justice. He’s previously worked in government, academia, NGOs, and for the United Nations. An avid bird-watcher, he founded Kusbank.org, a citizen science project on birds, back in 2001.
Vlad Bunea is an author, economist, and video essayist from Romania, currently residing in Canada. He is the founder of Degrowth Collective and co-founder of the International Degrowth Network, and publishes video essays on degrowth and related topics on his YouTube channel. He has worked 18 years in finance, and has published several books of fiction, most recently The Urban Dictionary of Very Late Capitalism.
Born and based in Ongata Rongai, East Afrika, Wangũi wa Kamonji is a regeneration practitioner researching and translating indigenous Afrikan knowledges into experiential processes, art, and honey. She has been following an ancestral invitation to rethink and reimagine everything from indigenous Afrikan ontologies, and extends this invitation to others through fromtheroots, providing rooted embodied tools for us to decolonize and reindigenize. You might find Wangũi reading, laughing, drinking tea, or dancing (maybe all at once).
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Find out more about the Post Growth Institute on our website.
