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Building Land Degrowth Transitions

Project description

Rethinking livelihoods beyond capitalism

The widespread influence of the capitalist economic system, along with its cultural and social impacts, has affected people’s livelihoods and living conditions around the world. In response, agrarian movements have developed ways of working and living that challenge capitalist ideas of production. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the BuiLDT project seeks to deepen our understanding of these movements – their beliefs, material practices, and connections to the land. It aims to explore how these movements, their social relationships, and alternative economies might offer solutions to major modern challenges, such as the exploitation of workers, non-human life, and natural resources. The project combines ethnographic research in Indonesia with a comparative study of movement organisations in Amazonia, Catalonia, and California.

Objective

The Building Land Degrowth Transitions (BuiLDT) research project is a critical analysis of the role of agrarian movements in the creation of forms of livelihood and work that do not contribute to dominant capitalist relations of production, exchange, and consumption. Through an inquiry into the material and ideological aspects of social movements' relations with the land, this research elaborates the potential of movement social relations and economies to ameliorate some of the most pressing challenges of modernity, namely the ongoing exploitation of workers as well as non-human life for industrial food production and extraction of natural resources.

BuiLDT integrates ethnographic methods in Indonesia with a comparative analysis of movement organizations in California, Amazonia, and Catalonia, focusing on places of political mobilization that have gone beyond resistance and conflict to establish spaces of alternative production and exchange with strong resonance with theorized post growth and degrowth trajectories of development. Specifically, this research asks how social movements can contribute to building degrowth transitions in the countryside through reworking the forms of access, control, and productive capacities of the land. Drawing on theories from degrowth and social movement studies, BuiLDT uses ethnography and spatial history methods to understand how movements create points of leverage that enable change, and how these movements are then able to establish low-carbon and non-capitalist economies. Supervision by Professor Giorgos Kallis and affiliation with the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) will provide me with leading training and career development in ecological economics, political economy/ecology, and degrowth research. In turn, I will bring expertise in agrarian change, social movements, and ethnographic approaches to ICTA and the European research community.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Net EU contribution
€ 209 914,56
Address
EDIF A CAMPUS DE LA UAB BELLATERRA CERDANYOLA V
08193 Cerdanyola Del Valles
Spain
Region
Este Cataluña Barcelona
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
No data