The Post Growth Fellowship: Deepening the Conversation
A body of content by researchers, activists, and entrepreneurs from around the world whose diverse voices and perspectives deepen and develop the post growth conversation.
As the inaugural Post Growth Fellowship draws to a close, we’re reflecting on a year of energizing connections and a body of content by researchers, activists, and entrepreneurs from around the world whose diverse voices and perspectives deepen and develop the post growth conversation.
Caroline Shenaz Hossein kicked things off with her Banker Ladies documentary, which introduces three Black women in Toronto creating diverse financial services for their communities through Rotating Saving and Credit Associations (ROSCAs). These self-managed money collectives provide an inspiring example of post growth in practice.
Caroline’s follow-up piece detailed the work of anti-racist feminists who are using collective forms of entrepreneurship to tackle discrimination, and ensuring the benefits get circulated back into the community.
In her article, Djemilah Hassani referenced Caroline’s work when talking about the Social Economy in Mayotte, a French overseas region in the Indian Ocean. Having voted to become French in 2011, the island is reclaiming ‘collective entrepreneurship’ to address long-standing inequities and develop economic independence from the mainland while harnessing the benefits of being part of the French republic — in other words, to decolonize. Despite being more than 8,500 miles from Caroline in Toronto, Djemilah noted the potential of the Social Economy in diverse contexts “to restore power to local economies and reconcile regions to bring about peaceful coexistence that involves a more equal and equitable exchange.”
In another serendipitous connection that emerged from the Fellowship, Djemilah collaborated with Monicah Muhoya. The two were able to meet in person and collaborate on a project for International Women’s Day, bringing together feminist social entrepreneurs from Comoros, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya. Monicah’s article, based on an episode of her brilliant OVAreact podcast, also focused on the Social Economy, uplifting the work of Kenyan entrepreneur Mary Nyaruai, whose startup addresses globally unequal access to menstrual health products.
Similarly, in Indonesia, cooperatives are strengthening communities and helping the most vulnerable to build resilience and self-sufficiency — as outlined by Heira Hardiyanti in her video. In the wake of the pandemic, she explains, “Jobs are not easy to get, but very possible to create.” Meanwhile, in Lebanon, which has faced multiple crises in recent years, alternatives to the failing capitalist model are emerging out of necessity. Yusra Bitar expands on the situation in her homeland, which she describes as a “microcosm of the ‘revenge of the real’,” and looks at approaches that might facilitate a just transition to a more equitable socio-economic system.
From Bolivia to Bangladesh, Indonesia to India, people across the Global South have revived, reimagined, and invented approaches to counter systemic problems highlighted by the pandemic. Shrishtee Bajpai’s article about the Global Tapestry of Alternatives celebrated these “alternative ways of being, knowing, working, dreaming, and of doing things,” whose existence proves “that the modern capitalist or nation-state dominated system is not the only system around.”
Indeed, in the Global South, evidence suggests that small to medium-size enterprises are prioritizing social and environmental impact over economic growth. An article based on a research paper by Cle-Anne Gabriel revealed that growth-based KPIs (key performance indicators), often imposed by the Global North, are less important to enterprises that aim to affect societal change. Interestingly, this was most pronounced among enterprises operating in the least ‘developed’ countries, supporting the theory that “proximity to the challenges that degrowth aims to resolve has motivated Global South enterprises to deprioritize economic growth.”
On the topic of future-weaving, Monika Bielskyte shared visions of the future beyond the utopia-dystopia binary, and how her background and life experiences led her to “inquiring why our perception of the future is the way it is, and how, by understanding our past and analyzing our present possibilities, we might actually change the narrative of what is possible and, especially, what is desirable.”
Zoljargal Mendbayar provided an insightful example of how Indigenous communities in North America, a bastion of settler colonialism, are using Native Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to transcend the confines of an oppressive socio-economic system while simultaneously operating within it. These Native CDFIs “contribute to Indigenous goals of abolishing the dominant systems and achieving post-growth, Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination through a phased and distributed approach.”
Transitioning to post-growth futures involves an expansion of worldviews, going beyond reductionistic modes of production and consumption to a more holistic perspective that acknowledges interdependence and prioritizes flexible learning. Robert Wanalo’s poetic meditation explores all this and much more.
Also focusing on learning, Symone Jackson reflected on her role in collaboratively launching the 2021 Black Solidarity Economy Fund; while Davion Ziere took a meditative approach to his piece, too, explaining how the business model of his community-centered market, Origyn, mimics the Earth’s water cycle by recirculating wealth into the community.
Mike Strode reflected on how to build a healthier relationship with value in our lives, through initiatives such as timebanking and the PGI’s Offers and Needs Market. Noting that value emerges from the stories we tell ourselves about what we are worth, he highlighted the importance of changing those stories and “building value in spaces and peoples who have been undervalued or actively devalued.”
In her inspiring personal essay, Amanda Janoo drew on the big-picture perspective of her world travels to explore why the US economy feels so broken, and bust the myth that the economic system is something abstract and outside of us. Instead, she reveals a secret: “We are the economy and we’ve got the power to change it.”
In Chile, as Gabriela Cabaña reveals, the people are doing exactly that, through a new constitution that has been written under revolutionary conditions: by a convention with gender equality, representation of Indigenous peoples, and members from environmental justice movements.
Gabriela also argued in favor of degrowth, and explained why reforming GDP is not enough to tackle the challenges we collectively face. Timothée Parrique wrote about degrowth, too, drawing from his background in ecological economics to outline why it’s “good economics” (whereas green growth is scientifically unfounded). An article based on a research paper by Beth Stratford unpacks how reducing opportunities for rent seeking would make it easier to become less dependent on economic growth.
Moving from post-growth theory to practice, an interview with Melanie Rieback expands on her work with the Post Growth Entrepreneurship Incubator, which helps founders break free from traditional business models and implement sustainable, non-extractive practices. In his expansive piece about Democratic Public Ownership, Thomas Hanna draws attention to the potential of combining “solidarity economy principles around democratic governance, equity, subsidiarity, and sustainability with the benefits of collective ownership in its widest, most holistic sense.” Such an approach provides a powerful tool in displacing for-profit corporate power, and in turn, mitigating the worst effects of climate change.
Finally, on the topic of governance, which touches almost every aspect of the transition to post-growth futures, sociocracy expert Ted Rau illustrated why collective decision-making creates opportunities to listen and deepen our connections, and provided some practical tips on how to apply regenerative governance. He also shared some wonderful insights about why, even with the best intentions, we sometimes need to be better at clarifying and communicating our needs — a skill that doesn’t always come naturally and often requires a playbook.
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