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Esteves, A. (2018). Towards Degrowth-oriented Public Action Frameworks: Articulating Commons and Solidarity Economy. “Dialogues in Turbulant Times” - 6th International Degrowth Conference.

A. M. Esteves,  "Towards Degrowth-oriented Public Action Frameworks: Articulating Commons and Solidarity Economy", in “Dialogues in Turbulant Times” - 6th Int. Degrowth Conf., Malmo, 2018

@misc{esteves2018_1766228246260,
	author = "Esteves, A.",
	title = "Towards Degrowth-oriented Public Action Frameworks: Articulating Commons and Solidarity Economy",
	year = "2018",
	howpublished = "Outro"
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Towards Degrowth-oriented Public Action Frameworks: Articulating Commons and Solidarity Economy
T2  - “Dialogues in Turbulant Times” - 6th International Degrowth Conference
AU  - Esteves, A.
PY  - 2018
CY  - Malmo
AB  - How could a convergence between the Commons and Solidarity Economy movements promote forms of public action based on degrowth? This paper argues that such outcome is possible if the theoretical and strategic frames articulating the two movements combine: 

a)	A political economy based on the development of linkages between “conceptual spaces” (Hess, 2015) in the public, private and third sector, as well as self-organizing practices at the grassroots level, which promote “public spaces of proximity” (Laville, 2011) in which organizational action are oriented towards the expansion of social and economic rights; 
b)	A political ecology which bases the “foundational economy” (Conaty, 2015), meaning the infrastructures that sustain everyday life - food, energy, health, education, housing, transport, finance of urban and rural settlements on the promotion of sustainable synergies between humans and the natural world. 

This paper drafts a conceptual framework for configurations of degrowth-oriented public action frameworks which combine the alternative political economy and political ecology principles specified above. It is based on the strategies used by ecovillages, commercialization-oriented urban commons and platform cooperatives for promoting the de-commodification and de-concentration of value. 

This framework is based on the critical analysis of three case studies of commons-based “alternative economies”, built upon different approaches to a Solidarity Economy praxis:

1)Tamera – Healing Biotope I (Portugal) - an ecovillage based on the application of regenerative ecology and community-building to the management of natural commons and the development of a “foundational economy”.

2) Cooperativa Integral Catalana (Catalonia) – An “Open Global Cooperative” which uses Platform Cooperativism to combine regional and national-level social currencies, as well as cryptocurrencies, with the purpose of co-constructing a Solidarity Economy beyond the reach of the state and financial capitalism.

3) Esperança-Cooesperanca (Brazil) – A Solidarity Economy-based commercialization network which uses urban commons as market spaces, with the purpose of developing regional-level supply chains which connect consumers to small farmers whose livelihoods are threatened by tobacco and soy multinationals, as well as by globalized agricultural supply chains. 


The strategy of case studies 1) and 2) is based on a conception of value as energy exchanged between biophysical entities in living systems. It aims to reverse processes of commodification and accumulation of biophysical energy by dissolving bureaucratic forms of decision-making power and resource allocation, and replacing them with structures of “connectionist politics” (Turner, 2006) aimed at maximizing efficiency in exchanges of energy. Such political strategy is based on the spatial expansion of horizontalist networks of collaboration, based on feedback loops of information. 

Case study 2) further addresses the de-commodification and de-concentration of value by using social currencies and cryptocurrencies as means of exchange between participants.

The strategy of case study 3) is based on a dialectic materialist conception of value as energy extracted from biophysical entities and commodified in the form of labour, land and capital goods. It regards the combination of grassroots mobilization and electoral redistributive politics as the adequate political strategy for the de-concentrating value. With that purpose in mind, the urban commons have a double function: a) As a space for building regional-level supply chains by connecting small farmers and manufacturers to consumers in the region; b) As a “public space of proximity” in which mobilization and collective action is oriented towards the expansion of social and economic rights through electoral politics.

The analysis is based on qualitative data (interviews, archival documents, participant observation) collected during four months of fieldwork that took place at each site between 2015 and 2017. 

ER  -