Imagine a parallel-universe US with a ~$20 trillion public wealth fund, built from the profits that O&G owners/executives/major shareholders took in our universe. Imagine how much better US health care, education, infrastructure, childcare, retirement support, etc. could be. Breaks the brain a bit.

Inspired by readings from @jennifer-clapp.bsky.social, @ashattuck.bsky.social and Maywa Montenegro de Wit

Small farms, gardens, and kitchens set the stage for larger acts of solidarity, mutual aid, and action. They are spaces where people gather to build something bigger and make the most of what we can share

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Grocery stores and farmers’ markets regularly destroy food or lock it in dumpsters to ensure that it is not given away for free, What kinds of ethical gymnastics are needed to insist that it is better to destroy food than give it away, if the point is to feed people?

dukeupress.edu/a-mass-consp...

Pro-gardens? Great! In Brazil, diversified gardens don’t just secure land claims, they create them. MST has taken over 7.5 million hectares of land since 1984, establishing schools, healthcare, and financing through biodiverse collective farms.

doi.org/10.1080/0306....

For example: Millets grown by smallholder Indian farmers became more lucrative after 2013, when the government paid for this previously noncommercial food. Extra income for a low-cost, climate-smart, and nutrient-dense crop they were already growing

www.newindianexpress.com/telangana/20....

While I love CSAs and cooperative gardens, an much easier way to fold farming back into social institutions is through school lunches. School lunches provide rippling benefits to a broader society by paying for that important local food and feeding kids with it

mitpress.mit.edu/978026254811...

US Gardens and hyper-local food systems forged a concrete, direct connection with farms, and this was a helpful stopgap during covid shortages....

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

As a Purdue grad, this is what I want to see!

In the interest building solidarity, I recognize that scholarship and its associated politics are diverse. It includes problematic roots that contemporary scholars disagree with. Open access version coming soon, so if paywalled please see: andrewflachs.com/s/Ethnobiolo...

This was a remarkable paper to write, in part because both ethnobiologist and degrowth reviewers curbed earlier versions where I was too focused on hatcheting arguments and not planting enough seeds. A shifting kyriarchy mis-applies ethnobiology, anthropology, degrowth, and other ways of thinking.

If the point of our work is not just to interpret the world in various ways but to change it, then ethnobiology and degrowth scholars are allies in action-oriented, imaginative research. Both ask how to scale up reciprocity and care. This is a way of being, a relationship. It is not a product.

Both conversations work to transcend problematic histories: ethnobiology opposes extraction and appropriation, while degrowthers reject Malthusian and ecofascism. But as long as these inform public conversations around human–ecological relationships and downscaling, the work is never finished.

Degrowth research offers a vocabulary to contribute to larger discussions of political economy and political ecology. It tends to emphasize political economy and industrial relations, centering/combatting capitalism while glossing the fine details of how communities co-create environments.