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I am thinking about writing a paper on the multiple roles of urban gardens to contribute to a degrowth society

I would examine the role of urban gardens for: subsistence, biodiversity, countering alienation from food production and agriculture (creating awarensess which in turn facilitates more sustainable consumption), strengthening town communities and local neighborhoods.

It could be published in the Special Volume on “Transitions to Sustainable Consumption and Production within Cities” in the Journal of cleaner Production

Perhaps someone wants to contribute?

Where:

Hello everyone,

As you know, one of the core aims of GROWL is to build up a trainers network on degrowth across Europe. At the beginning of the course I will present you more details on the project/network concept. For now, I wanted to remind the criteria/procedure we have set for becoming a GROWL trainer:

  1. take part in at least two GROWL courses
  2. prepare an assignment between the two courses, which includes content development and a course/workshop proposal connected with the chosen topic
  3. present it  to the network and at the second GROWL course
  4. get a positive feedback from the GROWL community and two assigned reviewers

If you are attending the course with the purpose of becoming a future trainer (i.e. attending the train-the-trainer module in Greece and at a further GROWL course), please inform me, so that I can add you to the future trainers list, where you will be able to get ideas for assignments or post your own.

I would also ask if any of you is making in Greece it's 2nd train-the-trainer course and wanting to present an assignment. In this case, I would ask you to publish beforehand an outline/short abstract of what you did and want to present on Oct. 5th.

I'm already with my 2 daughters on my way to Greece (now on the train from Vienna to Budapest) and looking forward for meeting you all and getting inspired by all that we will have the opportunity to hear, see and touch in Thessaloniki.

Gualter

Where:
 It was a great GAP in Leipzig!!!
Here are a few ideas of clarification about the GAP after the experience in Leipzig and  keeping in mind earlier experiences (Gaillac in 2006, Barcelona in 2010 (2x), Gorizia 2011, Cerbère 2012-2014)
The  GAP is a challenge to the absence of feedbacks, the idea of "commission of experts", to the idea of policy commission, to the reductionism of science, activism and politics, to  the inaccessible languages, to the non-collective syntheses...
Feedback process
The  idea is to build ideas, proposals, questionings by a process of  incorporating feedbacks, concerns all along the group-assembly process:  within the group and within the assembly
There  is a point in having specialists/ researchers studying some precise  points. But when the GAP begins this is a new process, a process where  their thinkings, their research and their outcomes is put into scrutiny, where ideas can come from all.
Open process for scientific discussions: THIS IS NO EXPERT COMMISSION
Following the ideas of post-normal science, apportation of knowledge on complex issues is no longer a matter of "experts", but rather of the whole "extended peer community". In the GAP, this idea is taken by allowing academics, activists and practicioners to come together and have an equal voice in the collective process of proposals, controversies and consensus building.
Open process of political proposals: THIS IS NO POLICY COMMISSION
Typically politically decisions are taken in policy commissions. Throughout history these types of commissions have been the place for non transparent work where specific interests could be defended
This is no "stakeholder meeting"
In stakeholder meetings, each one tends to defend his own interest. The idea is here to understand concerns of each other, but also non represented ones (like ecosystems or future generations) need to be voiced
Challenge to specialisation
The  assembly time enables to step-out of overspecialisation, understanding  that many issues one encounters within a certain thematic are related to  other thematics. In Barcelona we realised that different degrowth  proposals where complementary: no "silver bullet" makes any sense. This  goes with people of each group giving feedbacks to other proposals and  each group receiving feebacks/concerns from other groups.
Challenges to specialized language and developing good synthesis capacity
In the reports, one needs to be short, relevant & clear
GAP is no game
This is a collective construction of ideas, much more relevant  than a few people writing them. 
The GAP is a collective process
Many of us can feel isolated in their work, the GAP is also about leaving this isolation which has many bad consequences for the persons, and for the quality of the work
GAP is no end
The result we have is related to the people and the conditions and shall be seen as a photo in time. the process continues...
 Proposals for  future GAP sessions 
 
- have stirring papers integrated in conference workshops, have workshop papers integrated as stirring papers
- have better involvement of earlier experiences in GAP (those guys in Barcelona were not always easy to reach!!!)
- make it clear that people taking part in GAP working groups have read stirring papers and relevant litterature (list needs to be prepared), and have begun thinking
- a compilation of the online discussion shall be done and made available
- A call shall be made in the whole conference about the GAP assemblies so that they are full and the whole conference is involved.
- the start point shall the results of earlier GAPs, and all working groups have a question developed by the workshop on related subjects  
- if the groups have more than 10 they shall split and work on different questions
- new groups shall be made easily, it does not need to be so static        
- No lecture in GAP working groups, but slow building by collecting feedbacks, and dealing with them        
- The facilitators need to know the process and facilitate well the building-up with a slow integration of concerns
- have first report in the form of a short communiqué that is 2-3 phrases long. It should be in written form 
- The participants shall have 2 minutes to write feedbacks/concerns (it is also listening to silence;-). People with strong concerns shall be invited/welcomed in the relevant group. 
- the results of the working group shall not be consensual: it is very interesting to understand where the split is instead of flattening the differences and loose all this information
- we need good follow-up
- we need to keep the process going in person: the online process cannot replace it as there is a risk of technocratic building. On the other hand the two can be complementary: the social ones would prefer the public face to face GAP, while the "associal creep" would prefer the online process

Where:

It might interest you all!

http://roarmag.org/2014/09/john-holloway-cracking-capitalism-vs-the-stat...

http://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2014/09/29/opinion/1412000283_365191.html (this one is only in Portuguese, as I could find, but still, in case you can comprehend I assure it is a incredible interview material)

Best regards

Lina Raquel Marinho

Where:

Hey,

this is Jonas from the Mental Infrastructures Workshop. I just wanted to confirm this way that I did not forget you and the nice experience we had in Leipzig and at the same time fill this page with some life (although not to deep;) ).

Oldenburg is doing fine. Directly after the workshop, we discussed how our group can contribute to the GROWL concept and we thought that the course agenda is missing a course on "Degrowth and Energy", which could be held by some humble engineers. We feel that Energy is often seen as something uninteresting and unaccessible unlike for example the food topic.

The idea is to describe the way the triplet of Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency and Energy Sufficiency can lay out the foundation for a real sustainable society and may even pave the way towards it as Renewable Energy is potentially decentralized and small-scale. This enables citizens and cooperatives to engage and takes away power from big players.

The challenge is to make this topic accessible to Non-Professionals and to make it so wonderfully interactive as done by Thomas, Susanne, Christoph and Kristina.

However, for the moment we postponed that idea as we are trying to find jobs and are in some kind of transitional process. But let me hear what you think of the idea! Is it at all interesting? Can it contribute meaningfully to the GROWL concept?

Kind regards

Jonas

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