Julia Spanier, Leonie Guerrero Lara and Jacob Smessaert presented three papers and co-led a workshop session at the 9th International Degrowth Conference in Zagreb, Croatia.   Julia Spanier, Leonie Guerrero Lara and Jacob Smessaert, with Christina Plank and Michaela Pixova. Fertile Ground: Building solidarities and alliances between food sovereignty and degrowth across the rural urban…

Guilherme Raj presented the paper ‘Selective, quiet and representational: lessons from rural queer empowerment in a community-supported agriculture‘ at the 2023 conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 20-22 July 2023. Abstract: Rural queer studies call for examinations of how gender and sexual relations organise agri-food systems. These…

Laura van Oers, Julia Spanier and Giuseppe Feola presented papers at the third Rural Geography Conference hosted by the University of Groningen. Laura van Oers presented the paper titled ‘Setting-up a participatory guarantee systems (PGS) initiative in the Netherlands‘  (also see here for a methodological report on this study). Julia Spanier presented ongoing research on ‘Radical…

On 29 June Giuseppe Feola presented the talk ‘Sustainability transformation beyond capitalism: theorizing negation and affirmation in prefigurative grassroots initiatives’ at the Chair of Economic Geography and Globalization Studies (Prof. Sarah Ruth Sippel) of the Institute of Geography, University of Münster, Germany.   Abstract. Prefigurative grassroots initiatives are hopeful spaces of sustainability transformation beyond capitalism….

Laura van Oers presented the paper ‘The politics of phase-out and deliberate destabilisation for sustainability transitions‘ at the Eu-SPRI conference in Brighton, United Kingdom. The full paper can be accessed here.

Giuseppe Feola presented the paper ‘Schismogenesis and prefiguration in grassroots transformative spaces’ at the Alternative Futures and Popular Protest 2023 conference in Manchester. Abstract: The aim of this paper is to advance the theorization of prefigurative grassroots initiatives (e.g., community supported agriculture, autonomous peasant/food collectives) as spaces of sustainability transformation beyond capitalism. The paper’s main…

Giuseppe Feola and Laura van Oers gave a talk at the seminar series ‘Post-Capitalist Food Futures‘ at Wageningen University and Research. Their talk was titled ‘Degrowth and agri-food systems: current debates and future research directions‘.

As part of a larger e-training on political advocacy of the SALSIFI programme (Supporting Advanced Learning for Stakeholders Involved in Sustainable Food-systems Initiatives), Leonie Guerrero Lara will give a talk based on her research on political advocacy of the German CSA network, covering different strategies of, as well as resources and skills for advocacy. The…

Julia Spanier presented a paper titled ‘Rural-urban care? Interrogating the transformation of city-countryside relations in community-supported agriculture‘ at the Urban Inhabitation in the Anthropocene conference at the University of Sheffield. Abstract In line with a relational ontology of space and place , I propose to think urban inhabitation by transgressing the conventionally set ‘boundaries’ of…

Julia Spanier and Leonie Guerrero Lara gave a workshop titled “Degrowth, Ernährung & Landwirtschaft” (Degrowth, Food and Agriculture) at the 2023 spring gathering of the German CSA network (Netzwerk Solidarische Landwirtschaft). The workshop was based on the findings of their joint research on a potential coalition between the German CSA and Degrowth movements, and ended…