We would hereby like to invite early- and mid-career scholars working on the topic of organisation in connection to degrowth and post-growth to participate in our workshop from 12th April – 14th April 2023 at the Post-growth Innovation Lab in Pontevedra, Spain.
Literature and research on degrowth/post-growth organisation has increased in recent years. However, this emerging scholarship would benefit from researchers coming together and engaging in dialogue. Different perspectives and viewpoints exist (some contradicting) on organisational phenomena in connection to degrowth as well as post-growth. Further, challenges remain in terms of overcoming the different disciplinary silos and dispersed nature of this scholarship. We therefore seek to bring scholars together in pursuit of creating space for a dialogue about different approaches in this nascent field, thereby enabling wider understanding and engagement.
We consider it worthwhile to explore these different ‘strands’ or ‘currents’ of the degrowth/post-growth organisation scholarship to make it easier to highlight the overlaps as well as differences. For this purpose, we are hosting a 3-day event with three specific and connected aims:
- first, to explore the trajectories of research on degrowth/post-growth organisation together in a workshop;
- second, to establish/consolidate a research network furthering future dialogue and collaboration; and
- third, to develop a collaborative research paper highlighting the directions of this scholarship that emerge in the workshop.
The event will proceed as follows:
For the workshop (day 1, in-person), we plan to familiarise ourselves with each other’s work and approaches to the topic of degrowth/post-growth organisation. Through this, we will create space for dialogue and the emergence of generative themes. We will then gather around these generative themes and explore them further.
For the network establishment/consolidation (day 2, potential to join online), we hope to create lasting connections by forming a network for this specialised scholarship. On the one hand, this will make it easier for scholars in the future to engage with these topics. On the other hand, this will hopefully foster healthy debate in a highly diverse and important part of degrowth scholarship. Activities of such a network might include standing themes at conferences (e.g. degrowth conferences, ESEE, EGOS), paper development workshops and collaborative research projects (e.g. edited books). Hence we are looking to use the event to ‘revive’ Degrowth OERG, a research group formed with the aim of exploring and studying organisation(s) in the context of degrowth.
For the writing day (day 3, optional, in-person), we would like to gather momentum and further explore the generative themes emerged during the workshop on day 1. This is an optional activity, for those who wish to be a co-author in a collaborative research paper that will reflect on and further explore the need to shed light on the overlaps / differences of ‘strands’ or ‘currents’ of the degrowth/post-growth organisation scholarship.
If you are interested in participating in this event, please complete the attached form, then email it to the co-organisers. The form asks you to specify when and how you would like to be involved (i.e. in-person for the workshop and optional writing day, in-person or online for the network building day). Please also provide a response to the two writing prompts (around ~350 words each), which will serve as a starting point for the workshop.
The deadline for sending us a completed form is 15th November 2022. We are going to develop a social program in Pontevedra together with the University of Vigo’s Post-growth Innovation Lab, so confirmation of your attendance in-person versus online will ensure we can plan accordingly.
We are hoping to invite a range of scholars doing research in the area of degrowth/post-growth organisation. If you feel this call would be relevant to particular scholars, please feel free to share this call with them. Depending on interest, we may arrange a similar event with wider participation in conjunction with the 2023 Zagreb Degrowth Conference.
As the event will mainly be held in-person, we are aware of potential financial barriers for some scholars to participate in this event. We are looking into ways to financially support scholars that do not have institutional funds to participate in this event. We will share more details about this following the application stage.
All the best,
Ben Robra – ben.robra@uvigo.es
James Scott Vandeventer – j.s.vandeventer@hud.ac.uk
Laura Colombo – l.a.colombo2@exeter.ac.uk
Alejandro Fortuny – alejandromateo.fortuny@uvigo.es
Call for Participation Workshop on degrowth/post-growth organisationParticipant form Workshop on degrowth/post-growth organisation