Communicating Degrowth - a personal blog from IDN volunteer Kanika Prajapat

Along with another Master's Student, Fanny, I have been working on creating a card game called the New Normal, which aims to make it easier for people to engage with and communicate degrowth-aligned ideas better. After working on it on and off for about a year and half, we finally hosted our first prototype testing in the real world with real people at DeSchool (external link), Chicago, and gathered a lot of constructive and critical feedback on which we are iterating right now.

The game is built upon the Theory of Common Sense by Antonio Gramsci (external link), which says that in our society, there are a certain set of beliefs and ideologies that people hold about the "natural order of things," which is often shaped by the dominant culture to maintain the status quo. The game aims to challenge these prevalent capitalist-imperialist common senses and replace them with more eco-socialist values instead, by incorporating effective and strategic narrative tools.  

It is still a work in progress, and there's a lot that needs to be done before it can be moved to production, but we are very happy to achieve the first important milestone of prototype testing.

Ever since I finished my master's, one of my key goals has been to be able to speak about Degrowth in a room full of people and face their curiosities and questions with conviction and confidence.

In the last few months, I hosted 2 in-person (Thanks to The Climate Party (external link)) and few online sessions dedicated to exploring Degrowth ideas, with an audience ranging from people who have never heard of this concept to people working in the policy-making space, from students to lawyers, from start-up founders to social workers, and woah, what a thrilling experience it has been!  

I'm very fortunate to have received these opportunities, and for everything that I learnt in a relatively short amount of time. Here are a few key lessons from all these workshops...

The most important thing I learnt is that there is an appetite for such conversations in India. My biggest fear before these sessions was what if nobody cares about it here in India? What if they think it's a completely unnecessary and irrelevant concept for us Global South folks here!

 But I realised that most people are just so fed up with the current socio-economic-political structure, the cracks in the system are very clearly visible to most now and people are hungry for fresh perspectives and new narratives. My audience not only resonated with everything I presented, but they also built on it, shared their experiences, and validated my belief that there is space for such discussions here.  

 Second, the workshops expanded my network of people interested in exploring degrowth ideas within India. The Masters has given me a wonderful set of friends and collaborators from across the world, who keep me sane, grounded, and in high spirits.

But as I am based out of India, I think it is vital to have a community of people operating within a similar context so we can organise more meaningful and impactful actions.

With another friend, Ira, we are thinking of starting a community based in Hyderabad, which can come together to discuss, brainstorm, and strategize for a better economy and society. If you are based out of Hyderabad, please reach out, we'd love to know more about what you are up to and how we can support each other's work.  

Third, because of the workshops, I had to take a bird's eye view of the entire degrowth literature and come up with a neat, coherent narrative that flows and makes sense. Here's where things get really interesting because I'm going to use the same narrative structure to organise my Substack publication (external link) in the coming months.

As someone who is constantly trying to find order in chaos, here's how I would organise the massively complex web of degrowth ideas -

• Why? - Degrowth, first and foremost, is a critique of the destructive nature of capitalism, its relentless pursuit of growth, and the resulting multi-dimensional polycrisis.
  • Origin of Growth Paradigm
  • Infinite Exponential Growth
  • Growth at all costs
  • Growing the wrong things
  • Unequal and colonial growth
    
    
• What? - If not this, then what? Well, Degrowth envisions a future rooted in well-being, sustainability, justice, and democracy. It draws inspiration from diverse sources, including Southern alternatives and existing examples of degrowth in various sectors.
  • Origin of Degrowth ideas
  • Theoretical Foundations of Degrowth
  • Different Approaches to Degrowth - Biophysical, Systemic, Cultural
  • Criticisms and misconceptions of degrowth
  • Grassroots Alternatives to Growth
    
    
• How? - Lastly, Degrowth is a growing movement driving this transformation through activism, community-led initiatives, and policy interventions.
  • Policies for Degrowth
  • Putting Degrowth into Practice
  • Communicating Degrowth ideas effectively