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“We are part of many constellations of artists and organisations demonstrating in real time that the rehearsal for a life-affirming economy is already underway.”
—Amahra Spence
Movements all around the world, working to repurpose our economics for the 21st Century, are vast, expansive and growing in breadth, depth, creativity, courage, scale and hope. In a recent report by Demos Helsinki, the authors attempted to create a picture of activities in new economic thinking across Europe. It paints a vibrant and eclectic movement, spanning geographies and growing in size that is disrupting the neoliberal paradigm whilst actively contributing towards building a new mainstream — in creative, courageous and diverse ways. It also cites its own limitations from a birds-eye view, missing the story emerging from our homes, streets and neighbourhoods, and the story of the long-overlooked actors present in the embedded economy diagram of Doughnut Economics. Moreover, by referencing a limited geographical spread across Europe, we are limited in our imaginations because we’re centring the Global North, and, by doing that, we’re reinforcing our own story. Nonetheless, the report boldly tells and shows us that the economic tide is turning.
Radical pioneers, such as Decolonising Economics, Onion Collective, We Can Make, The Black Land and Spatial Justice Project and many more are drawing from ancestral and embodied knowledge systems through art, practice, theory, creativity, and practical and visionary methodologies to dream and craft bold futures that are healing, restorative, sacred and in deep relationship with ecology and our more than human neighbours.
We have also been deeply inspired to stay rooted amongst and rebuild relationships within our local more-than-human ecologies, inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Since hosting a Reading Circle exploring themes of the book amongst neighbours, wisdoms from Dr Kimmerer have imbued spirit into our work, examples including: the principle of mutual flourishing in reciprocity, the sacredness of nature’s gifts that materiality lacks the lexicon to emulate, the powerful reciprocity in doing science with humility and awe, understanding our responsibility to be the question of what our gifts are, and how we shall use them, and that becoming indigenous to a place means to live as if our children’s futures mattered. These are amongst some of the teachings that have and continue to guide our work.
"Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise. It is relationship that will endure and relationship that will sustain the restored land." ** *—*Robin Wall Kimmerer
In DEAL’s own principles, they describe clearly that they wish to be part of a movement, and not the movement itself*.* In our work until now, we have always wished to centre more marginal voices, spotlight those often missed, search beyond our own dominant view points that are often steeped in Global North bias, and a lack of decolonial thinking at the heart of the stories we live, listen to, hear, and are in systems of. In a healthy way, we have sought to critique elements of the Doughnut that struggle to convey some of the tensions, such as the colonial undertones of the SDGs and their limitations. Whilst also recognising the positionality of the initial text, arising through a white, Western, academic lens — much of this critical analysis is encouraged by Raworth herself. But it’s not necessarily easy to discern that this critique is welcome whilst also holding the integrity of the framework, at first glance. In addition, we hope to surface and share the stories and visions of many radical imaginaries in this growing space, working at many scales, and to help inform, broaden and decolonise our own thinking and practice as we move through this journey together.