Article written by Alessia Greselin, PhD Researcher at Tampere University, Finland
Around a month ago, Italy opened the seasons of national-level discussions on degrowth in Europe with the “Beyond Growth Conference – Italia 2024”. The event was organised by Movimento per la Decrescita Felice, Associazione per la descrescita, Partners for a New Economy, Wellbeing Economy Alliance, EEB and Friends of the Earth Europe. The two days discussions in Rome and online brought together different actors to reflect on degrowth-related topics.
During the first day at the Italian Chamber of Deputies, internationally renowned researchers in degrowth laid the ground on what degrowth means from an academic perspective and why it is needed. After the opening speeches from Kate Raworth, Barbara Muraca and ToBe researcher Federico Demaria, the day continued with two panels involving academic researchers (Riccardo Mastini, Mario Pansera, Adriana Maestro, Roberta Cucca, Giacomo D´Alisa, Simone D´Alessandro). The importance of reconsidering the role of work and implementing sufficiency policies have been highlighted, as well as the idea of reconverting the role of technologies to support what is already there instead of only focusing on new innovations. Eco-social policies focusing on care and housing have been mentioned as examples of policies to look forward to. After the interventions from researchers, four exponents from different political parties were invited to discuss on a roundtable the topics presented beforehand.
April 19th, opening of the Beyond Growth Conference – Italia 2024 at the Chamber of Deputies in Rome.
After the dialogue between research and political parties, in the second day, the discussions continued at the Città dell´Altra Economia, where the floor was given to social movements in Italy. Decolonialism, extractivism, intersectionality, commons, social and environmental justice were some of the topics that were touched upon in relation to degrowth during the interventions of activists and other exponents from social movements. Taking a look at how this translates in the Italian context, recognizing realities like the colonialist approach toward southern Italy as well the health-work-environment nexus is fundamental for a post-growth scenario. In this second day, participants were invited to share posters from ongoing projects and ToBe was present with the poster based on our first policy brief, “Time ToBe Transformative”.
April 20th, PhD Researcher Alessia Greselin with the “Time ToBe Transformative” poster at Città dell´Altra Economia.
While the road ahead toward a post-growth future is still long, the “Beyond Growth Conference – Italia 2024” represented a fundamental milestone. Beside bringing the conversation started in the Brussels “Beyond Growth Conference 2023” from the EU Parliament to a national scale, it provided the opportunity to start building alliances across research, politics and social movements. Stay tuned for the next national level beyond growth conferences happening in Europe in 2024!