GROWL is an international education network for degrowth formed by academics, practitioners, researchers and political activists. One central aim of the network is to promote collective action across initiatives related to degrowth (e.g. Transition Towns, agroecology, Solidarity economy, DIY among other "nowtopias"), in order to reduce the atomization and dispersal of initiatives that hinder their capacity to scale up and present a solid alternative to the dominant economic paradigm.
History
GROWL was founded in 2013 by ten non-profit, research and higher education organisations under the coordination of the think-tank Research & Degrowth. The network build-up has been supported with a ca. €200000 grant from the Grundtvig programme for the period between August 2013 and July 2015.4
In 2014, the first international thematic courses took place:
- Social dimension of agroecology
- Solidarity & Cooperative Economy
- Mental Infrastructures
- Local Economic Alternatives
Philosophy
The network departs from the acknowledgment of major shortcomings of contemporary education institutions in providing adequate knowledge and skills required to critically address the problems of limits to growth and engage in the transformations towards a post growth and sustainable society.5
The network relies on the theoretical foundations of social constructivism and the concept of peer learning based on communities of practice.6
References
GROWL website, URL: http://co-munity.net/growl http://co-munity.net/growl ↩
Kallis, Giorgos, Kerschner, Christian and Martinez-Alier, Joan. The Economics of Degrowth. Ecological Economics 84: 172-180, 2012 ↩
Baptista, Gualter. Learning and building knowledge for degrowth: communities of practice and peer production across scales and beyond roles, in Fourth International Conference on Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity, Leipzig, 2014. URL: https://co-munity.net/conference2014/scientific-papers/3734 https://co-munity.net/conference2014/scientific-papers/3734 ↩
HNA. Gemeinschaft erleben, 24.9.2013, URL: http://www.hna.de/lokales/witzenhausen/gemeinschaft-erleben-3130179.html http://www.hna.de/lokales/witzenhausen/gemeinschaft-erleben-3130179.html ↩
Oya. Degrowth wächst, 2014, URL: http://www.oya-online.de/news/719-degrowth_waechst.html Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine http://www.oya-online.de/news/719-degrowth_waechst.html ↩
"Philosophy in group GROWL | co-munity". http://co-munity.net/growl/about/philosophy ↩