Zbornik



TRANSITION STRATEGIES FOR



GREEN A JUST GREEN



TRANSITION



A JUST



Proceedings from the Summer School



of Political Ecology 2025



TEGIES FOR



STRA



Strategies for a just



green transition



Proceedings from the Summer School



of Political Ecology 2025



Ljubljana, 2025

NASLOV: Strategies For A Just Green Transition



UREDNIKI ZBORNIKA: Sultana Jovanovska, dr. Andrej A. Lukšič, Boštjan Remic



RECENZENTI:

dr. Andrej Kurnik, dr. Barbara Beznec, dr. Luka Djekić



IZDAJATELJI :

Inštitut Časopis za kritiko znanosti, za založnika: Hakimova Aigul, Inštitut za ekologijo, za založnika: Andrej Lukšič



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Contents




PART I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5



Ståle Holgersen:

Searching for a Socialist Approach to Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya: A Strategic Canvas for Degrowth: In Dialogue with Erik Olin Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Francesca Gabbriellini and Lorenzo Feltrin: The Method of Convergence:

The Laboratory of the Ex GKN Dispute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden:

Reporting Back from 10 Years of Climate Jobs Campaigning . . . . . 47



PART II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69



Zoi Christina Siamanta: Conceptualizing Alternatives to Contemporary Renewable Energy Development: Community Renewable Energy Ecologies (CREE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Rita Calvário: Edible Revolutions:

Food, Power, and Postcapitalist Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui: Surviving Through Community Building in Catastrophic Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui: Communal Governance and Production in Rural China Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153





PART I




Ståle Holgersen1



Searching for a Socialist



Approach to Crises2



What legitimises power under capitalism is called progress. Although capitalism has always produced poverty and under-

development, it has been legitimised by the idea that ‘in time’ everyone will enjoy the fruits of progress. It only takes some po-licy reforms, a few more rounds of investment and some more

development before even poor countries become rich, and poor people in rich countries become middle class.

But what happens to faith in progress when capitalism is in

a sea of crises? How is capitalism legitimised when both growth and jobs are lost and companies go bankrupt? What about pro-gress when we fear the climate of tomorrow?

The crises expose capitalism. Suddenly, we can see clearly

how useless the billionaire celebrity speculator really was, how little politicians really knew about our society and how dogma-tic the ruling ideology was. Crises reveal what lies behind the

fine theories of market freedom and self-regulating economies. We see, in the words of Henryk Grossman, ‘the chaos of the de-struction of capital, the bankruptcy of firms and factories, mass

unemployment, insufficient capital investment, currency crises, and the arbitrary distribution of wealth’.3 Class interests imme-diately become more apparent. As quickly as ideology and pretty



1 Ståle Holgersen is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Stockholm University, Sweden.

2 This article has been originally published in the Verso Blog Post. Available on: https://www.

versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/searching-for-a-socialist-approach-to-crises

3 Henryk Grossman, ‘Marx, Classical Economics, and the Problem of Dynamics’,

International Journal of Political Economy 36, no. 2 (Summer 2007), p. 47.



7

Ståle Holgersen



words about freedom and human values disappear, self-interest

and pragmatism emerge. Praise for the free market falls silent when the capitalist class needs support from the state. During a crisis, we have historically seen both the flexibility of the capita-

list system and the desperation of the ruling class – two pheno-mena that should never be underestimated.

But, if crises really expose the nature of capitalism, why ha-

ven’t 200 years of recurring crises sent the system to the dustbin of history? If, as Karl Kautsky said a hundred years ago, the re-curring crises are memento mori – a ‘reminder of death’, that is,

a foretaste of capitalism’s final collapse – why does capitalism appear as alive today as ever? If, as Daniel Bensaïd argues, crises threaten to blow up the whole of bourgeois society, why does ca-pitalism seem to draw additional strength and energy from each

new crisis? If, as Jared Diamond argues, crises are moments of truth that challenge the ideology of progress, why does the ruling class seem able to use crises precisely to advance its positions,

reinforce its power, and once again create a world in its image? 4

That intellectuals can use crises to disclose capitalism is po-litically cold comfort. It is an illusion that a ruling ideology must be coherent.5 Capitalism is not driven by coherent ideologies. In

fact, it is not primarily driven by ideologies at all. The crises of capitalism come with a curious double character. While crises can – in theory – help us to reveal and expose capitalism’s we-

aknesses and problems, they are also – in the actual political economy – central to the reproduction of capitalism. Crises are a good starting point for criticising capitalism, but they also make

it harder to actually overthrow the system.

The crises of capitalism come with problems even for liberals. An old liberal dream is to maintain what is considered the sunny side of capitalism – growth, progress, optimism – and to be able to

control or simply get rid of permanent and recurring disasters. One



4 Karl Kautsky, ‘Finance-Capital and Crises’, marxists.org (1911); Daniel Bensaïd, ‘The Time

of Crises (and Cherries)’, Historical Materialism 24, no. 4 (2016), p. 14; Jared Diamond,

Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change (London: Penguin, 2020), p. 7.

5 See, e.g., Stuart Hall, ‘Gramsci and Us’, in The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the

Crisis of the Left (1988), published on versobooks.com, 10 February 2017.



8

can try to realise this dream in different ways, for example through

active state policies and regulations (as with Keynesians and social democrats) or through privatisations and deregulations (as with neoclassical and neoliberal thinkers). Together, these schools of

thought seek a world based on capital accumulation, growth and progress, where crises are controlled or eradicated.

This liberal dream has been shattered again and again thro-

ughout history. The dream of many Marxists is an inversion of the liberal dream. Here, the crises are supposed to lead to the collapse of capitalism and thus to the age of socialism. This hope has been dashed just as many times as the liberal dream of a world

without crises.

While Marxist and socialist theories are useful tools for un-derstanding crises, in actually existing capitalism the system is

reproduced one crisis after another. For liberals, crises are theo-retical problems with political possibilities. For Marxists, crises present theoretical possibilities, but political problems.



Dangers or Opportunities?



Perhaps the most common definition of crisis comes from the

thirty-fifth president of the United States. John F. Kennedy said in 1959 that the Chinese word for crisis is composed of two cha-racters – one (危,wei in Mandarin) meaning ‘danger’ and the other

(機, ji) meaning ‘opportunity’ – and this great wisdom has been re-peated innumerable times. In a modern take on the climate crisis, Al Gore said in 2015, ‘We all live on the same planet. We all face

the same dangers and the same opportunities; we share the same responsibility for charting our course into the future.’6

The idea that we all face roughly the same opportunities and dangers in economic crises is simply wrong. In the case of

climate change, the same statement becomes morbid. (According to Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature, Kennedy was wrong even linguistically, as the second character



6 Cited in Robinson Meyer, ‘Al Gore Dreamed Up a Satellite – and It Just Took Its First

Picture of Earth’, Atlantic, 20 July 2015.



9

Ståle Holgersen



does not mean opportunity, but rather ‘incipient moment’ or ‘de-

cisive point’. Thus, not necessarily a time for optimism or a good chance of advancement, but certainly a period of change.7)

If crises really are opportunities, why is it a given who will

lose? Because it is. It is (almost) always the poor who pay the price. Crisis as ‘danger and opportunity’ hides a class character: danger for whom and opportunity for whom? For the ruling class, crises

can indeed be opportunities.

The famous saying ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ (often attributed to Winston Churchill) also comes with a class chara-cter. Try saying that to the thousands losing their loved ones in

wildfires, heatwaves and floods, to the millions losing their jobs and homes in economic crises, or to young women and children being forced into prostitution. For workers, the poor and small

farmers, especially in poor countries, crises are not opportunities to be ‘used’. Crises are desperation, unemployment and death.

Despite the devastating impact of crises on ordinary people,

it is not only bourgeois economists and North American presi-dents who have viewed crises with a degree of hope and optimi-sm. The young Karl Marx was basically preparing for the fall of capitalism as soon as he saw signs of crisis on the horizon.8

Engels was not much different. In 1845, Engels wrote that the people ‘will not endure more than one more crisis’.9 But the next crisis in 1847, in the midst of the Europe of revolutions, quickly

passed. Hope returned with the Great Crisis of 1856–57. Engels wrote to Marx in November 1857: ‘Physically, the crisis will do me as much good as a bathe in the sea; I can sense it already. In 1848

we were saying: Now our time is coming, and so in a certain sense it was, but this time it is coming properly; now it’s a case of do or die.’ 10



7 Victor H. Mair, ‘“Crisis” Does NOT Equal “Danger” Plus “Opportunity”. How a Misunderstanding

about Chinese Characters Has Led Many Astray’, pinyin.info, September 2009.

8 Sven-Eric Liedman, A World to Win: The Life and Works of Karl Marx (London: Verso,

2018), ch. 14.

9 Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (Mansfield:

Martino Publishing, 2013), p. 296.

10 Friedrich Engels, ‘Engels Letter to Marx, Manchester, 4 August 1856’. Reprinted in Karl Marx



10

Marx was working on the Grundrisse at the time and wrote

in a letter to Engels that he was working like mad at night to finish the manuscript before the flood came.11 Regardless, the crisis of 1857 passed without any revolution; there was no ‘do or die’.

Instead, the crisis was followed by a prolonged economic boom.

The young Marx’s optimism did not come out of nowhere, and we can better understand this with a short return to the

conceptual history. Milstein argues for a defensive reading of crisis developing during the seventeenth century, which can be linked to Hobbes’s Leviathan and was about overcoming dangers and restoring a ‘normal state’. In contrast, what Milstein calls

an ‘offensive reading’ of crisis developed during the eighteenth century, with writers such as Rousseau and Thomas Paine.

This was no longer about retreating or trying to avoid crises,

but, rather, about moving on to the next stage of historical deve-lopment.12 In this respect, the younger Marx is surely a child of the eighteenth century.

The older Marx gives us a very different approach to crisis, and according to Peter Thomas and Geert Reuten, the Grundrisse is the battleground for the two different perspectives.13 In sharp contrast to all previous naïve optimism, the older Marx empha-

sised how crises functioned within phases of accumulation cycles and were components of the reproduction of capital.

Many Marxists never stopped hoping that crises would be

opportunities, even with revolutionary potential. Environmen-tal historian Jason Moore argues that, while crises are full of dangers, ‘as the Chinese would remind us, they are also full of

opportunity’.14 If any Chinese have actually reminded us of this



and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, vol. 40 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, e-book, 2010).

11 See Liedman, A World to Win.

12 Brian Milstein, ‘Thinking Politically about Crisis: A Pragmatist Perspective’, European

Journal of Political Theory 14, no. 2 (2015), pp. 144–5.

13 Peter D. Thomas and Geert Reuten, ‘Crisis and the Rate of Profit in Marx’s Laboratory’, in

Riccardo Bellofiore, Guido Starosta and Peter D. Thomas (eds), Marx’s Laboratory, Critical

Interpretations of the Grundrisse (Leiden: Brill, 2013), p. 312.

14 Jason W. Moore, ‘Toward a Singular Metabolism: Epistemic Rift s and Environment-Making



11

Ståle Holgersen



very point, they have probably studied Western crisis theory.

Moore subtitles one of his most famous texts ‘How I Learned to Stop Worrying about “The” Environment and Love the Cri-sis of Capitalism’. It is not clear from the text what this means,

but, elsewhere, he has argued that the fall of the Roman Empire after the fourth century and the collapse of feudal power in the fourteenth century led to a golden age in living standards for the

vast majority.15 This might be empirically true, but it remains politically irrelevant to speculate today about positive outcomes centuries into the future. For someone losing their loved ones due to crises, the prophecy that someone else’s greatgrandchildren’s

grandchildren might benefit from the current disasters is hardly a reason to learn to love any crisis.

The general tendency throughout the history of capitalism is

that crises do not tend to benefit workers and the poor, but there might be exceptions to the rule. One is the Black Death which, although it occurred before capitalism, is still a relevant example.

Small farmers and the poor who survived the plague were then in a better position, but at the cost of having lost friends and family in a terrible mass death. Cholera made life terrible in nineteenth--century industrialised cities, but, arguably, contributed to public

health measures and urban planning that gave workers a better local environment. Should we coldly ignore social consequences and consider plagues and cholera as opportunities for the wor-

king class? At what cost?

Concerning economic crises, the most common example of the working class advancing its position through a crisis is

the interwar period. Certainly not everywhere, but in places like



in the Capitalist World-Ecology’, New Geographies 6 (2014), p. 16. For other examples, see

Dan Cunniah, ‘Preface’, International Journal of Labour Research 1, no. 2 (2010), pp. 5–7;

Salar Mohandesi, ‘Crisis of a New Type’, Viewpoint Magazine, 13 May 2020; Bob Jessop,

‘The Symptomatology of Crises, Reading Crises and Learning from Them: Some Critical

Realist Reflections’, Journal of Critical Realism 14, no. 3 (2015), p. 246.

15 Jason W. Moore, ‘The End of Cheap Nature: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying about

“The” Environment and Love the Crisis of Capitalism’, in C. Suter and C. Chase-Dunn

(eds), Structures of the World Political Economy and the Future of Global Conflict and

Cooperation(Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2014), p. 285. Jason W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of

Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (London: Verso, 2015), pp. 86–7.



12

Norway, Sweden and the US we must ask: Did the workers’ mo-

vement win because of the crisis? The working class had been strengthening its position and building its movement for years – was this really reinforced by, say, the Great Depression of 1929?

These are complicated questions, to which we will return later in the book. Here we just need to emphasise that what we are discussing are possible exceptions to the main tendency.

The argument of crisis as opportunity can also be taken a step further. Some feel that it is only through crises that the left can find political opportunities. The 2019 and 2020 elections

with Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders were often described as ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunities. Perhaps too inspired by Gramsci, some pushed the thesis of crises as decisive ‘populist moments’ and breaking points between different forms of hege-

mony: yesterday was too early; tomorrow is too late! Crisis is the only opportunity for real radical change; if we lose now, we need to wait forty to fifty years for the next hegemonic crisis. Fortu-

nately for us, this is wrong.

According to the Swedish historian Kjell Östberg, econo-mic crises do not necessarily create rebellion and radicalisation.

Social struggle shows a relatively independent relationship with economic cycles and with long as well as short economic waves. If anything, there seems to be a negative correlation between economic crises and higher unemployment, on the one hand, and

widespread readiness to fight, on the other. 16 Looking quickly at the twentieth century, we see that widespread protests seem to take place a few years before the crisis. The 1917 revolution came

in a sea of wars and crises but took place twelve years before the great crisis of 1929; the 1968 uprisings came five years before the 1973 crisis; and the anti-globalisation and antiwar movements

of 1999–2003 came a few years before 2008. Should we conclu-de from this that great opportunities always come a few years before major economic crises? No, that would also be far too



16 Kjell Östberg, ‘Den solidariska välfärdsstaten och förändringarna i den politiska

dagordningen’, in Torsten Kjellgren (ed.), När skiftet äger rum: Vad händer när den politiska

dagordningen ändras (Stockholm: Tankesmedjan Tiden, 2017), pp. 25–8; Kjell Östberg,

Folk i rörelse: Vår demokratis historia(Stockholm: Ordfront, 2021), pp. 65, 100, 150.



13

Ståle Holgersen



speculative. Having said that, we should acknowledge that social

struggles certainly do not happen independently from political economic processes. But, rather than searching further for such historical relations in this respect, the aim of this book is to help

us understand the nature of crises so that we know the terrain on which we will need to fight the coming crises.

Östberg finds it hopeful that waves of radicalisation are not

determined by economic waves, as insurgencies are therefore not dependent on specific economic cycles. But this does bring further problems for the crisis-as-opportunity approach: if chan-ces for radical change are at least as high during periods not

characterised by crisis as they are during crisis, then every single day with or without any crisis is an opportunity.Here, the concept becomes politically and analytically meaningless.

The crisis-as-opportunity argument arguably peaked in 2015. Five years after the earthquake in 2010 in Haiti which killed around 230,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless, a writer at

the Correspondent had the audacity to ask whether the earthquake wasn’t also a ‘fresh new opportunity’. Perhaps even ‘the best thing that ever happened to Haiti?’17

Another version of the opportunity thesis is one that sees

crisis and progress everywhere. Brian Milstein argues that social welfare institutions and human rights have been established and many ideas of socioeconomic justice have become mainstream

because of, and in the wake of, economic crises. 18 The problem here is that because capitalism has created so many crises, and since major institutional changes develop over years, it is not

hard to find a crisis that took place a few years before or after any important political decision. This does not necessarily mean that the crisis is the cause of the improvement.

If crises are indeed opportunities, should we hope for more

crises? That would be ridiculous. The idea that crises are good be-cause they open up opportunities for the poorest is just as absurd



17 Maite Vermeulen, ‘Was the Earthquake the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Haiti?’,

Correspondent, 12 January 2015.

18 Milstein, ‘Thinking Politically’, p. 142.



14

as the idea that the slave trade opened up opportunities for today’s

African Americans to become entrepreneurs and even presidents of the United States. Or that colonisation was an opportunity for the poor in India, for example, because it gave them buildings and

railways. Only fascists or psychopaths would make such argu-ments. These are anti-humanist positions that calculate with – or rather ignore – the lives of vulnerable people. If opportunities – as

defined in textbooks – are occasions or situations that make it possible to do something you want or have to do, and if oppor-tunities – as conventionally understood – entail moments of exci-tement, optimism and hopefulness, and chances for advancement,

then we must refrain from referring to crises as opportunities for the working class, the environmental movement or the political left . This does not mean we should not attack crises with all our

might. We just need a different approach.



Beyond Keynesianism



Throughout the 2010s, you could go to conferences where Marxists discussed crisis theory and how crises must be solved through re-volutions and socialism. Then we all went home to our respective

socialist parties and voted for Keynesian investment programmes. Why do socialists run to Keynes every time there is a crisis?

Costas Lapavitsas explicitly says that Keynesianism is the most

powerful tool we have, even as Marxists, to deal with political issu-es in the here and now. While the Marxist tradition, according to Lapavitsas, is good at understanding and dealing with medium-

and long-term problems, it cannot be compared to Keynesianism when it comes to short-term crisis management.19 If Lapavitsas has a point – that Keynesianism is the best tool Marxists have in the face of crises – he has, above all, pointed to a major problem.

But, if crises are mainly possibilities for the ruling class and problems for the rest of us, and if the struggle for socialism would be easier without crisis, could we quickly solve crises with Keyne-



19 Costas Lapavitsas, ‘Greece: Phase Two. An Interview with Costas Lapavitsas’, Jacobin, 3

December 2015.



15

Ståle Holgersen



sianism and return to Marxism as soon as the storm is over? This

is a dead end. Apart from the fact that there is no guarantee that Keynesian crisis management actually solves crises, the crises are so many and so severe that a left that mobilises a social-liberal

approach in every crisis will be stuck there.

Keynesian crisis management may to a greater or lesser extent be directed at servicing workers and the poor, but, as with

any inter-capitalist solution, it will always have to restore profits and reproduce capitalism. This is a prerequisite. And one that can be easy to forget. With arguments about state interventions,

challenges to the power of certain capitalists and calls for grand reforms – add to this that Keynes himself was part of the legenda-ry Bloomsbury Group – Keynesianism can offer a ‘critical edge’, a sense of radicalism, although it will always save capitalism, one

crisis after the other.

It is easy to dismiss Keynesianism as liberal theory masque-rading as critical theory. But, as soon as crises become concrete,

things become more difficult. There are reasons why socialists so often grasp for Keynesianism in crises. Left -Keynesian appro-aches do seek to implement social reforms that can improve the lives of workers and the poor. Easing the pain for the working

class without confronting the ruling class is, arguably, better than not easing working-class pain at all. If someone needs a crisis to vote for investments in public transport, this is surely better

than no such investments at all. For socialists in the face of actual crises, there are seldom better alternatives on the table. Even for Marxists, this tends to be the least bad option. Keynesians may

find it hard to admit the big truth: that capitalism itself is the problem. But Marxists find it equally difficult to know what to do with this great truth in the midst of a crisis.

Crises create shocks in situations where people demand politi-

cal action. There might be much uncertainty in the air, but somet-hing must be done. The hypothetical alternatives of allowing the economic crisis to deepen or the climate crisis to escalate are, by

most people, considered worse than those offered by the powers that be. The gravity of the situation – both how serious the situa-



16

tion is, and how little time there is to respond to it – pushes many

to search for safe havens in less radical circles. We can call this the pragmatic trap, or perhaps the Keynesian fishing net: the left is caught between different choices, all of which are calibrated to

reorganise capitalism. This is just as true for economic crises as it is for ecological ones. It is in such situations that the climate--conscious left bends its neck and says yes to people like Hillary

Clinton and Joe Biden – because the alternative is Donald Trump.

On the one hand, a left that accepts Keynesianism as crisis policy is a left that keeps capitalism alive, which makes the system ready for new rounds of exploitation, accumulation through dis-

possession and destruction of nature. Given how often capitalism produces crises, if we do not find another approach, the left will be busy reproducing capitalism for decades and decades to come.

On the other hand, a left that cannot handle the here and now of crises, that cannot speak to the social distress that crises produ-ce and that operates only on a discursive level of revolution and

smashing the system will forever be politically irrelevant. We still need another approach.

We can neither escape nor ignore the crises. I see no reason to criticize individuals or groups who try to escape capitalism,

either by living ‘outside’ the system within urban centres or by moving to the countryside or into the wild. But the vast majority of workers will still be left in the coils of the crises of capitalism.

As the crises of capitalism are global, they cannot merely be con-fronted at a local scale. There is nothing wrong with deep ecolo-gists moving to the country and growing their own food, but this

type of response will not solve the major problems in a world of 8 billion people. Local mutual aid responses to crises might ease some pain during a crisis and create community solidarity. There are many reasons to support, and indeed participate in, this type

of response. But socialists must also look a few steps further. It is not only about surviving the crises; it is about stopping them.

Then there is Naomi Klein, who emphasises the need to re-

main calm in the face of shocks and avoid being carried away



17

Ståle Holgersen



by panic.20 This might be wise advice for some pseudo-crises or

in the face of conspiracy theories. However, crises are not only discourses; they are actually existing events that shake the world. The shock is real. When people see their jobs, housing and the

earth beneath them disappearing quickly, the strategy of orga-nising the masses to keep calm will hardly win. I have a softer spot, in this respect, for Greta Thunberg’s ‘act as if the house

was on fire, because it is’.21 We need to ‘panic together’, and we need organised socialist movements that bring our own shock doctrines and creative destructions into the ring.

A position that is very rare in Marxism is to try to ignore or

disregard crises altogether. One exception was the Italian Com-munist Party in 1975, which declared that there was no need to dramatise the crises because they obscured the true state of

affairs and made it more difficult to find solutions.22 This never proved a very productive strategy. When the crises are the state of affairs, we need to face the challenge: we must confront the crisis.



Towards a Socialist Approach



According to the Marxist economist Rikard Štajner, there are two

cataclysms of mankind: war and crisis.23 What Štajner is indicating is that we should relate to capitalist crises in the same ways that we approach war, hunger, slavery and so on. This approach I believe is

fruitful. Crisis and its causes are something we must fight against.

Rather than opportunities we look forward to exploring, or moments when the fight for socialism is put on hold, the crises

are problems we must solve. Štajner’s linking of war and crisis is also interesting from a historical perspective. In the 1910s, the struggle for revolution was not just a battle between workers and capitalists in workplaces. It was also crucial to ending (or pre-



20 Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (London: Allen Lane, 2023), ch. 11.

21 Greta Thunberg, ‘Our House Is On Fire’, Guardian, 25 January 2019.

22 Rikard Štajner, Crisis: Anatomy of Contemporary Crises and (a) Theory of Crises in the

Neo-imperialist Stage of Capitalism (Belgrade: KOMUNIST, 1976), pp. 66–7. 40.

23 Ibid., p. 190.



18

venting) capitalist/imperialist wars. Socialism in our time must

be about stopping the crisis. Rather than hope and excitement, socialists should approach the crises of capitalism with rage and anger. Rather than opportunities, crises are the enemy.

Lenin said that war is not something you can end ‘at will’; similarly, crises are not something we can choose to pause under capitalism.24 Stopping crises requires something more radical

than a few regulations or a more active state. Over a hundred ye-ars ago, those who opposed war sought to expose its class nature: Who was sacrificed and who supported the war; what interests did it serve; what historical and economic conditions produced

it, and how did wars reproduce capitalism? In a similar way, we must expose the role of crises under capitalism.

A socialist approach to crises cannot be based on any naïve

optimism that crises are ‘opportunities’, or sweet dreams that crises will provide us with the collapse of capitalism. We must start from what normally happens during actually existing crises,

and an understanding of how capitalism produces crises and crisis reproduces capitalism. In this book, we will see that it is empi-rically far-fetched to call the crises of capitalism opportunities for the working class or the political left , and we will discuss

theoretically how this can be the case.

The crises of capitalism are not moments of truth; they are battlefields. There are reasons why (parts of) the ruling class

– not workers and the poor – tend to win these battles, and, in order to do something about this, we must identify the reasons. Therefore, we will in this book also examine creative destruction,

the class character of crisis, crisis as shocks and panic, the rela-tive autonomy of the state, and the role of nationalism, racism, fascism and war. And more.

That the crises of capitalism are social paroxysms means

that they necessarily exist on different levels. So, then, must any socialist approach that seeks to confront the crises. On a gene-ral level, we must understand the nature of crises, how crisis



24 V. I. Lenin, ‘The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution’, in Lenin Collected Works, vol.

24 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964 [1917]), pp. 55–92.



19

Ståle Holgersen



produces capitalism and vice versa. We can call this a Marxist

crisis critique. Once we know the terrain, we can start articulating more concrete socialist crisis policies, which are general strategies and programmes that socialists can use to confront actual crises.

But, when a crisis hits, theoretical understandings and general programmes are insufficient. There is an urgent need for very concrete action. Socialist crisis management is needed to ease so-

cial pain for the working class and to bring the class character we prefer directly into situations of shocks and panic.

The aim of this book – standing on the shoulders of giants, in dialogue with comrades – is to explore what a socialist approach

to crisis can look like. The scope is limited to crisis critique, with only brief discussions about crisis policy towards the end. This means that much more work needs to be done. I hope that some

readers will feel a calling.

History has shown that crises are not usually opportunities for workers and the poor; but there is no reason to bend the stick

too far in the other direction. This is not an iron law. It is a ten-dency. Our historical mission as socialists in a burning world is to make a monumental exception to this tendency.



20

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya1



A Strategic Canvas for



Degrowth: In Dialogue with



Erik Olin Wright2



Introduction



In order to build strategies for social-ecological transformation, we need to think about them analytically, in relation to the goals

of concrete organisations and social movements we are part of. In this chapter, I set out a strategic canvas that degrowthers and allies can engage with, in order to identify priorities, tensions, and think about how to avoid co-optation in building their stra-

tegies. How are you pursuing social-ecological transformation? What kind of strategy would help you in doing this? What are its potentials, and limitations? How can you keep developing your

strategy to amplify collective efforts for social-ecological trans-formation? These are some of the questions that this chapter helps to think about.

In what follows I will argue that degrowth strategies for so-cial- ecological transformation (see Chapter 3) need to combine several strategic approaches, reflecting the plurality of degrowth as a movement. To support the myriad of bottom-up alternatives

that are already out there, degrowth actors should put a special emphasis on strategies that build power outside of the capitalist



1 Ekaterina Chertkovskaya is a researcher based at Lund University.

2 This contribution has been originally published in Barlow, N., Regen, L., Cadiou, N.,

Chertkovskaya, E., Hollweg, M., Plank, C., ... & Wolf, V. (2022). Degrowth Strategy. How to

Bring About Social-Ecological Transformation. Mayfly, London.



21

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya



system and be very cautious of those which merely seek to tame

capitalism. At the same time, the degrowth movement should also integrate the strategic logic of overthrowing capitalism altogether. Concrete initiatives would benefit from being more focused when

strategising, whilst critically reflecting on the choices made. This argument comes from a dialogue with the work of the late Erik Olin Wright. I build on his helpful analytical vocabulary on trans-

formation and strategy but diverge from the strategic configuration he calls for, primarily by seeing ruptures from the capitalist system as an important direction for pursuing transformation.

The chapter will proceed as follows. First, I introduce three

modes of transformation. Second, I outline the strategic logics associated with each of them. I engage with Wright in both secti-ons, in relation to degrowth, furthering his analytical framework

and showing where I diverge from his argument. I then suggest how the strategic canvas shaped through this critical dialogue can help grassroots groups to think about their strategies.



Modes of transformation



Wright (2009, 2019) identified three modes of transformation:

ruptural, interstitial and symbiotic. 3 Ruptural transformations seek a direct confrontation or break with existing institutions and social structures. Interstitial transformations involve building new

forms of social empowerment on the margins of capitalist society, usually outside of spaces dominated by those in power. Symbiotic transformations, in turn, are aimed at changing the existing in-

stitutions, and growing power within the current system so as to ultimately transform it. For Wright, these modes of transforma-tion are closely associated with the revolutionary socialist, anar-



3 Wright himself used different vocabularies to describe ruptural/interstitial/symbiotic

transformations, such as “logics of transformation” (Wright 2019) or “strategies” (Wright

2009). In this book, when referring to Wright’s work, we in the editorial team have opted

for yet another term he used – “modes of transformation.” It helps to describe how

transformations happen, but does not equate them to strategies. Rather, particular and

distinct “strategic logics” are needed to foster each mode of transformation.



22

chist and social democratic traditions respectively. Using a game

metaphor, he connects symbiotic transformations to changing the rules of the game, interstitial transformations to particular moves in the game, and ruptural transformations to changing

the game itself (Wright 2019). When we talk about degrowth, we are talking about social-ecological transformation, i.e., a trans-formation that aims to bring about two entangled outcomes –

ecological sustainability and social equity (see Chapters 1 and 7). This is something to keep in mind when thinking about the modes of transformation and accompanying strategic logics. Let

me unpack how each of these modes of transformation connects to degrowth in more detail.

The interstitial transformation is crucial for degrowth as a movement and might be seen as its basis. Indeed, degrowth is

about resistance to the capitalist and growth-centric system, and building directly democratic bottom-up alternatives is one of the key principles for the politics of degrowth (Asara et al. 2013). This

is also where many movements that degrowth connects to and can learn from are located (see Chapter 6). Climate and environmen-tal justice movements, for example, express frustration with ina-ction on climate change or fight against the harmful industrial

expansion. As such, these movements are locally embedded and horizontally organised interstices opposed to the business-as-usu-al approach that puts growth and capital accumulation first. The

organising practices we consider degrowthian – which work for open relocalisation and repoliticisation, such as cooperatives and commoning – operate within the interstitial mode, too. Renewable

energy cooperatives, for instance, offer a community-driven appro-ach to producing energy. Democratically run and serving the needs of a community, they are interstices between the spaces occupied by fossil energy or destructive ways to bring in renewables.

Multiple interstitial actors are already engaged in social-eco-logical transformation and can be said to be paving the way for rupture from capitalism (Wright 2009). However, they have little

capacity to fully address the problems they raise, such as climate change; while the alternatives they embody are on the margins of



23

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya



the economy, often dismissed as “niche” or “unscaleable”. Con-

tinuing growth and capital accumulation by all means, in turn, are supported by powerful agents such as corporations and go-vernments, and the institutional settings created by them.

In view of this, the symbiotic transformation becomes impor-tant. Whether we want it or not, this is something we as a degrowth movement have to engage with in order to expand the spaces for

alternatives, limit ecologically and socially harmful activities, and change the very systems that shape social institutions. Degrowth, as a movement, has been consistent in arguing for systemic change from below whilst making use of available governance and insti-

tutional mechanisms. Symbiotic transformation has already been flagged as something to engage with for degrowth, complementing and supporting interstitial transformation (e.g., D’Alisa 2019). The

state and its institutions have been identified as key spaces through which symbiotic transformation in line with degrowth can be pur-sued (see Chapter 9). This can be done, for example, by attempting

to influence policies and practices at different levels of governance (e.g., municipal, national, supranational).

To this end, various degrowth policy proposals have been formulated (e.g., Kallis 2018, Buch-Hansen and Koch 2019), and

degrowthers have been part of collective calls to reorient policies away from growth. For instance, in a letter co-signed by many degrowth scholars, 238 academics called on the European Union,

its institutions and member states to reorient themselves away from the logic of growth towards the aims of ecological sustaina-bility and well-being (see the Guardian 2018). While this call fell on

deaf ears, continuing efforts towards symbiotic transformation is important to transform the system from within. However, due to engagement with powerful actors and on terrains shaped by them, there is also a risk of critical voices being co-opted. Even

if symbiotic transformation pushes the change of institutional logics, corporate actors could still remain powerful in shaping the new agenda, watering down the radical demands.

The role of the ruptural transformation has so far not been engaged with explicitly in the work on degrowth. This is in line



24

with Wright himself (2009, 2019), who analytically describes

what this mode of transformation entails, but is sceptical of it. Wright refers to rupture as a complete and sharp overhaul of the capitalist system, and as a direct attack on the state. According to

him, the twentieth-century examples of revolutionary seizures of power did not result in truly democratic, egalitarian and eman-cipatory alternatives to capitalism, which makes system-level

rupture implausible for overcoming capitalism (Wright 2019, 42). While ruptures are to be cautious about, making sure that the means are in line with the ends, I would not dismiss ruptu-re as a mode of transformation. Instead, I suggest recognising

different scales at which ruptures can take place – so that they refer not only to system-level break of nation-states, but also to small-scale and temporary overhauls of capitalism. Wright (2009,

309) acknowledged the possibility of reading ruptures in this way rather than as totalising and concerning the whole system, tho-ugh without elaborating on it further.

Understanding of ruptures as small-scale and temporary, I argue, opens an important direction for pursuing social-ecolo-gical transformation. An act of disobedience like blocking a coal mine – something that is endorsed by degrowthers – can be seen

as an example of a temporary rupture that empowers and enco-urages other forms of action. It includes resistance, too, but goes beyond it by disrupting, even if only temporarily, the rhythm

of extractive capitalism. Another concrete example of rupture consists of workers overtaking a factory and converting it into a cooperative, as has been the case in the occupied factories in

Argentina (e.g., Atzeni and Ghigliani, 2007). Such ruptures can be used to support and stimulate interstitial and symbiotic modes of transformation, and possibly create momentum for transfor-mative change.

The three modes of transformation, as the illustrations in this section already demonstrate, are not mutually exclusive. For example, a network of small-scale renewable energy cooperatives

can act politically by articulating and calling for the kinds of chan-ges it wants to see in policies, thus combining interstitial and sym-



25

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya



biotic transformation. Or, an occupation of a space can combine a

rupture from business-as-usual with the enactment of interstitial alternatives (Aitchison 2011). Thus, these modes of transformation are not only compatible, but the different knots that are created

when their entanglements are acted on are also key for pursuing social-ecological transformation (see Chapter 10).

Having connected the three modes of transformation, as

identified by Wright, to degrowth, I next argue that degrowth, as a movement, needs to engage with all of them; with interstitial transformation at the core of degrowth practice, symbiotic trans-formation helping to expand the horizons for radical possibilities,

and temporal and localised ruptures enabling radical change by taking power. Care needs to be taken that symbiotic transforma-tions are not co-opted, and that ruptures are pursued cautiously,

aligning the means with the ends.



Strategic logics



In his last book, Wright (2019) connected the three modes of transformation to specific anti-capitalist strategic logics, aimed at either neutralising harms or transcending structures: resisting

and escaping; taming and dismantling; and smashing. In order to visualise the potential of interstitial transformations and the different ways in which ruptural transformations can happen,

I complement these with two additional categories – building alternatives and halting. By introducing each strategic logic and connecting it to degrowth, in this section, I set out a strategic canvas that gives a lens for thinking about how to act strategically

(see Table 2.1). It is important to keep in mind that degrowth is not only anti-capitalist, but also anti- productivist, which will have implications for building strategies.



Resisting, escaping and building alternatives



Resisting and escaping are, for Wright (2019), the strategic lo-

gics of interstitial transformation. Resisting is about raising a



26

o



re it en th pa te na mg- y w tu er h o om ge w ge it onn b lt uc g lla ig c gio tr nga w g a vi lin e rk he 1 inat g s in co s ve ut s es i ke t 1 ho er ni rmor ti s rs nt



in al nt ns b n t up ld wo ash ic ur ui n e macc et it is es i t t Sm end B ol n D lv hary o sc 1 ng a p g a at nito an ng er in y t er pi un icac ld Tr r op oad ol ca a f g . 5r bui co Esg . E . a pE . g . E .



s



s st ol on bs onti on sI s a is m eme ac m rom W ar g he g g nc in lis 2 e ce d ie g h ti e cut rig ra s on ht 2019, 122, 124) ap



cin st in in ti ab m ed ging f si st l C0 alt us Ta H ob Re du t e ona is te j ha ti Re a d lima y t na g . ic on E . a c ol g . E . a p g . E .

building on but diver



cs d t o s th ( is te h ogi ona l l m s it re al ina tiow c l ia it ia tu n a te tu gigr oc ap om oc ys ak w uc e i te ns ns sti t . ns re tr f s f c on io s d ra ar s nt s io l s . tio at s o s o ce g in r bor de St ul re rm i r d ia at ) . er m m in pa op ur fos f n o oc ce rma or or stin rg rm m o ow ns s f s xi lava sf fo tio fo er o ra ng p he c nd p n pan ew f ns ta-t g e ni ns ran de as rt n t on s a lar he ma ra in ly t si se i ra l t g n t pe hi fr ho te on cu nggic c ia in n t ut ho it l t on ti ti ee n tic it ld o ha e ste t o ima tu tio st ui ly t w ura by t lt par en bio t c al nd d pt rp c en sti an b m a ter e b m rma su m ha s a to u lv Ru In er Sy ed g in u fo er se c vo w y, rm im w tin ns he in po es et fo ek a s is ra po (t e a ci se ex od em ar so emble 2.1. A stra M of tTa



27

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya



particular problem in one way or the other and trying to bring

it to the attention of decision-makers, employers, organisations, or the broader public. Climate demonstrations can be seen as in tune with the strategic logic of resisting. While undoubtedly

important, resisting does not in itself transcend structures and risks staying with the diagnosis of the problem without making the next step towards transformation (Herbert 2021). However,

resistance, say, in environmental justice movements, can also cre-ate spaces for reflection on the meaning of a particular protest for the groups mobilising around it, thus going beyond just reducing harms (Akbulut et al. 2019, Singh 2019).

Escaping, in turn, is the strategic logic of interstitial trans-formation that transcends structures. Here Wright (2019) dis-tinguishes between escaping as an individualistic choice – often

based on prior privileges and the initiatives that escape capitalism for more collective and egalitarian living. It is only the latter that is part of his strategic logic of anti-capitalism, with intentional

communities and cooperatives being possible examples. For him, the strategic logic of escaping “typically involves avoiding poli-tical engagement and certainly collectively organised efforts at changing the world” (Ibid., 177). In other words, while giving

inspiring examples of living differently, initiatives that embrace this logic may be focused primarily on running their own com-munity or organisation, while distancing themselves from wider

collective action for change.

While I agree with Wright that simply escaping capitalism is not enough for bringing about transformation, I find labelling

all interstitial efforts that transcend capitalist structures as only escaping capitalism problematic, as this downplays their trans-formative potential. Indeed, Wright acknowledges that interstitial initiatives can be building blocks of an alternative society, and

it is this point that I would like to push further. By introducing the strategic logic of building alternatives, I argue that interstitial alternatives can go beyond escaping capitalism or the economy

(see Fournier 2008), into actively and collectively building power outside of the capitalist system. For example, workers’ collectives



28

or community initiatives, apart from setting an example by their

own organisations, can be building relations and networks with other like-minded groups, and supporting them in various ways (e.g., Kokkinidis 2015; Sekulova et al. 2017). The strategic logic

of building alternatives denotes politicised engagement within and beyond a particular alternative and can be seen as key for degrowth. The distinction between escaping and building alter-

natives also suggests strategic directions for degrowth as a mo-vement, pointing to the importance of encouraging and creating spaces for the politicisation and engagement of those who are

already following the strategic logic of escaping.



Taming and dismantling



Taming and dismantling are the strategic logics that are part of a symbiotic transformation. Both are arguably needed for transformation and can be mutually reinforcing. The reduction

of working hours – a policy proposal that is often discussed in degrowth – can be seen as an example of taming. It would liberate the time from work, without immediately changing this work

itself, nor how it is organised and controlled. However, the time released can be channelled towards activities aimed at interstitial transformation, and possibly towards demanding actions that

would support them, helping to dismantle the current system. Without taming, dismantling might not be enough. For example, dismantling practices, such as supporting cooperatives or local-ly anchored organisations institutionally, may be a drop in the

ocean when powerful corporations are not tamed and existing institutions are still oriented towards growth. Thus, policy pro-posals such as those discussed within degrowth (e.g., Kallis 2018)

or allied proposals like the Green New Deal for Europe (GNDE 2019) combine taming and dismantling. However, the balance between these strategic logic is something we as the degrowth

movement should be careful about, making dismantling rather than taming key to our efforts. In other words, it is important that taming does not become a less radical compromise in the struggle for transformation.



29

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya



The distinction between taming and dismantling is help-

ful to analytically discern how symbiotic transformation can be pursued, as well as to identify where the risk of co-optation can emerge when doing this. While dismantling without taming can

be insufficient to bring about social-ecological transformation, it is possible to imagine taming being pursued without leading to dismantling, thus co-opting the efforts for symbiotic transfor-

mation. For example, in the socialist movements of the twentieth century, the more radical demands were often overtaken by those just taming capitalism. Wright (2019, 57) gives an example of Sweden in the early 1970s, where the left wing of social democrats

wanted to put forward a policy that would enable labour unions to become the majority share owners of Swedish corporations in the long-term, which never happened in the end. Thus, the

strategic logic of dismantling should be seen as key, with a bold vision for policies and alternative institutions that we would like to see. Taming, in turn, should be used to support and further

argue for dismantling. For instance, in times of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, the strategic logic of taming would consist of arguing for connecting rescue packages for companies to their future environmental performance. Adopting the strategic logic

of dismantling would consist of demanding the kinds of changes that would alter the power relations in society, like support for workers to turn bankrupt companies into collective and not-for-

-profit ownership models such as cooperatives.



Smashing and halting



The strategic logic of smashing capitalism – associated with ruptural transformation – is not part of Wright’s (2019) vision

for how to overcome capitalism. However, waiting for symbiotic transformation to bring the legislation and institutional changes that would support the transition of power from capital might

mean that such transformation would never materialise, as was the case with the example from Sweden. Or, there would be no pioneering examples of occupied factories today had the workers not activated the strategic logic of smashing and organised to



30

take power. Such ruptural transformations enacted by the wor-

kers in the case of factory occupations have allowed for somet-hing different than what is done by alternatives operating within interstitial transformation: overtaking a space, sometimes huge,

with infrastructure that can be used and repurposing this space through collective deliberation. Without rupture, the workers would most likely not have had sufficient resources to get hold

of and equip such a site in the first place.

Once the strategic logic of smashing capitalism has resulted in a ruptural transformation and a space has been repurposed,

it can become a building block for interstitial transformation, enacting the strategic logic of building alternatives. For example, occupying in an urban landscape – whether a house or a plot of land – as done by squatters (see e.g., Cattaneo and Gavaldá

2010), enables its reclamation from capital, whilst also opening the possibility of converting the occupied space into a commons. Small-scale ruptures can encourage others in similar situations

to take power in the spaces where they operate. Moreover, having such examples in place and demanding their recognition can ulti-mately push for symbiotic transformation towards cooperativisa-tion and commoning. Despite such potentialities, it is important

to be aware that actions within the strategic logic of smashing can also be criminalised, punished or delegitimised by authorities.

The understanding of ruptures as small-scale and temporal

adopted in this chapter means acting towards ruptural transfor-mations does not necessarily lead to transcending structures, but can also be about reducing harms. This is why I introduce

the strategic logic of halting capitalism, i.e., stoping destructive activities, even if for a short time, aiming to break the rhythms of capitalism, productivism and extractivism. An act of disobe-

dience like blocking a coal mine can be said to be following the strategic logic of halting. It manifests a sharp confrontation with existing structures, while not transcending them. Actions wit-hin this strategic logic are in tune with degrowth (D’Alisa et al.

2013) and movements close to it, such as the climate justice mo-vement. An occupation of a university to protest neoliberalisation



31

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya



is another example (Aitchison 2011). While being a temporary

act and likely not leading to a longer-term occupation, it aims to halt unjust actions. The strategic logics within ruptural transfor-mation are most likely to be enacted in particular contexts when

certain tipping points are crossed – for example, when destru-ctive expansion continues despite the severity of climate change, when workers are not paid by their bankrupt companies, or when

common people have to deal with austerity measures as a result of problems they had not created.

A degrowth strategy needs to combine several strategic approaches, reflecting the plurality of degrowth as a movement.

First and foremost, it needs to support the myriad of interstitial alternatives that are not only resisting and escaping the logic of growth and capitalism, but are already building alternatives

in the present. To do this, it should put a special emphasis on the strategic logic of dismantling but be very cautious about ta-ming when pursuing symbiotic transformation. Furthermore,

degrowth as a movement should integrate the strategic logics of halting and smashing capitalism, by disturbing the rhythms of business-as-usual, and by daring to take power when it is possible to do so. Pursuing ruptural transformation is particularly impor-

tant and more likely to be ethically justified in times of capitalist crisis (Bond 2019), when the absurdity and violence to keep the current system going become more evident, and when cracks in

this system may open spaces for expanding alternatives.



A strategic canvas for degrowth and how to

take it forward



The discussion of the modes of transformation and strategic logics elaborated by Erik Olin Wright (2009, 2019) and further

developed in this chapter offers a comprehensive strategic canvas that degrowthers and allied movements can relate to (see Table 2.1). So far, I have argued for degrowth as a movement – chara-cterised by a multiplicity of actors and voices (see Chapters 4 and



32

5, see also Barca et al. 2019 and Paulson 2017) – to embrace the

plurality of modes of transformation and strategic logics offered by this canvas, emphasising where priorities lie and where it is important to be cautious.

Specific organisations that are part of or connected to de-growth, however, can be more focused on locating themselves on this strategic canvas. If you are an environmental organisation

that calls for systemic change while working close to the institu-tions of the European Union, symbiotic transformation may be your priority. For example, you can be aiming at reshaping the EU politics away from growth through impactful reports and by

shaping discussion in the EU spaces, drawing on and helping to render visible the grassroots voices calling for social-ecological transformation, as well as promoting the policy agenda that wou-

ld make dismantling possible. If you are a grassroots organisation, say, running a cooperative in an urban space, pursuing interstitial transformation via building alternatives might be key to your

strategy. Depending on the context, you may decide whether you want to also pursue symbiotic transformation. For example, if operating in a municipality sympathetic to your goals, you might want to find ways to push for policy changes that would help

alternatives like yours to flourish. Or, if operating in a hostile environment or under an oppressive political regime, you may de-cide to focus on building alternatives parallel to existing instituti-

ons and get engaged in building counter- institutions with allied groups. And yet another example – if you are an environmental justice group seeing a forest at the risk of being cut for industrial

expansion, engaging in the strategic logic of halting might feel like the only right thing to do, out of which longer-term ruptures and building of alternatives may also emerge.

Having identified your terrain within this strategic canvas, you can keep thinking deeper about your strategies, putting them into the context you operate in, in relation to your goals, and the broader aspirations of social-ecological transformation. While

there is an ongoing multidimensional crisis (Brand and Wissen 2012), and degrowth presents an alternative political project, the-



33

Ekaterina Chertkovskaya



re is so far little public support of it and no unity of different po-

litical forces calling for social-ecological transformation, which prevents a paradigm shift from happening (Buch-Hansen 2018). Thus, when crafting your strategy, you might go in the direction

of building up popular support for degrowth, or into building alli-ances with other politically engaged actors. The primary purpose of some groups might be precisely to help forge these alliances

and to connect and coordinate different modes of transformation within the larger movement.

As an actor within the degrowth movement, you may need to keep thinking about how you relate to institutions of the state,

and the potential to push them from the bottom-up (see Chap-ter 9). Importantly, acting for social-ecological transformation, including devising your strategies, is not something static that is

decided on once and for all. It is a process to keep engaging in, evaluating (see Chapter 8), and amending. Finally, in acting for change and strategically, it is important to stay true to degrowth

principles, its spirit and multiplicity. To do this involves a parti-cular approach: critically reflecting on actions for alternatives, being alert to possible closures and co-optations that might arise in the process, and being ready to address them while also finding

inspiration and knowledge in different spaces – which has been articulated as nomadic utopianism (Barca et al. 2019).

To conclude, I hope that this chapter can help both degrowth

and allied movements, as well as different grassroots groups, to think analytically about the mode(s) of transformation they pur-sue, and which strategic logics to mobilise. Many questions about

the how of building and enacting these strategies remain, which this book will help you to think through, via theoretical refle-ctions in Part I and concrete examples from different spheres of life in Part II.



34

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Francesca Gabbriellini and Lorenzo Feltrin1



The Method of Convergence:



The Laboratory of the Ex GKN



Dispute



On 9 July 2021, Melrose Industries announced the closure of its

GKN Driveline (formerly FIAT) factory, which used to produce car axles in Campi di Bisenzio, Florence, and the layoff of more than 400 workers. While in many cases the workers and unions

would settle for negotiating enhanced redundancy benefits, the GKN Factory Collective took over the plants and kickstarted a long struggle against decommissioning. However, what makes

the Ex GKN dispute really unique is the strategy adopted by the workers. They sealed an alliance with the climate justice move-ment by drafting a conversion plan for sustainable, public tran-

sport and demanding its adoption, as part of a broader vision for a worker-led ecological transition. This engendered a cycle of broad mass mobilisations, repeatedly bringing tens of thousands to the streets. Four years later, the dispute remains open. Whi-

le the workers have been laid off in April 2025, the permanent sit-in at the factory continues and the GKN Factory Collective still demands the ecological conversion of the site through their

plan to set up a cooperative for the production of cargo bikes and solar panels. This project is currently seeking material solidarity. Over one million euros have been collected by the popular sha-reholding campaign to launch the cooperative, with a new target

of two millions. All information on how to join can be found at Insorgiamo.org. The original version of this article, in Italian, was published in the first issue of the online magazine Teiko.



1 Lorenzo Feltrin is a Marie Curie Global Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice’s

Department of Humanities.



37

Francesca Gabbriellini and Lorenzo Feltrin



From the work stoppages to avoid COVID-19 exposure to

the “climate strikes” against extreme heat in the workplaces, we have seen an updating of the iconic experiences of working-class environmentalism we inherited from the Long 1968, which were

rooted not in abstract ideals of nature conservation but in the ma-terial urgency of improving living conditions in communities and workplaces.2 Italy’s Ex GKN dispute has become emblematic of the

struggle to break free from the jobs-environment dilemma today, taking it to its most radical conclusions.3 It is nonetheless self-de-feating to ignore today’s prominence of a working-class denialism, which assembles the jingoist and patriarchal elements within the

working class to the project, promoted by the “Alt Right”, of a ca-pitalism liberated from the green mask, as the latter has become a much too cumbersome nuisance. If Bidenomics could be cha-

racterised as a “green” plan of capital,4 Trump’s economic poli-cy is the white – supremacist – plan of capital, exiting the Paris Agreement while openly advocating the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

In the rhetoric of the “ecological transition from above”, workers must accept restructurings in the name of a supposed

sustainability, merely internalising the profit imperative, even if the latter comes neither with a steady income nor with an ac-

tual decline of CO2 emissions. Where workers manage instead to counter this with an alternative vision of productive con-version, and to conquer a space of protagonism to re-design its trajectory, we see the outlines of an “ecological transition

from below”,5 in which both working-class interests and susta-inability are simultaneously advanced. In such cases, capital gets rid of its “smart” trappings to declare flat-out that its own



2 E.g., Lorenzo Feltrin and Devi Sacchetto, “The work-technology nexus and working-class

environmentalism: Workerism versus capitalist noxiousness in Italy’s Long 1968”, Theory

and society, 50(5), 2021, 815-835.

3 Francesca Gabbriellini and Paola Imperatore, “An eco-revolution of the working class?

What we can learn from the former GKN factory in Italy”, Berlinergazette.de, 2023.

4 Lorenzo Feltrin, “Il piano verde del capitale: Crisi e direzioni alternative”, Globalproject.

info, 2024.

5 Lorenzo Feltrin and Emanuele Leonardi, “Working-class environmentalism and climate

justice: The challenge of convergence today”, ProjectPPPR.org, 2023



38

ecological transition was a farce and that certain segments of

the working class, destined to become larger and larger, must simply resign themselves to be tossed from one catastrophe to another. In such a conjuncture, we must strengthen the co-

unterpowers of working-class rigidity against the flexibility demanded by the market, weaving connections among the struggles waged by different segments of the working class.

But which social forces can take upon themselves such a dau-nting task? To search for answers, it is useful to examine the con-

figurations of interest and power within the global working-class composition. On the on hand, the workers who have the strongest interest in limiting the ecological crisis are those most affected by it and who benefit the least from business as usual, like the pea-

sants who have been losing their livelihoods under the blows of droughts and floods. On the other hand, those who have the grea-test power to do it are the workers employed in the hard-to-abate

polluting industries. Coalition building between these two types of working-class compositions would be needed to generate the broad social movements necessary for working-class rigidity to

become a more assertive counterpower. However, sound theory and good intentions are not enough. In fact, when it comes to the will and ability to challenge a whole system, interest and power tend to be inversely proportional. The objective fragmentation of

the working class means that opportunities for convergence tend to arise in conjunctures of crisis, when and where the structures separating different working-class segments become temporarily

fluid, providing the space for a converging momentum.

A contribution of operaismo6 that remains useful today is the principle according to which different working-class com-

positions need different organisational forms. There is then no universal formula, ready to be applied to any context. Re-working the Trontian motto ‘strategy to the class, tactics to the party’,7 we



6 Operaismo is a New Left current that emerged around the struggles of Italy’s factory

workers in the 1960s and was mainly disseminated through the journals Quaderni rossi

(1961-66) and Classe operaia (1964-67).

7 Mario Tronti, Workers and Capital, London: Verso, 2019 [1966].



39

Francesca Gabbriellini and Lorenzo Feltrin



could say ‘rigidity to the class, flexibility to the organisation’. As

argued by Rodrigo Nunes, the flexibility principle must also be applied to the articulation between horizontal and vertical ele-ments of organisational forms.8 However, Nunes’ most interesting

proposition is perhaps that of seeing any organisation as opera-ting in an ecology of organisations; an organisational plurality, inescapable even within the working class itself. Traditional uni-

ons are still the instrument most used by the workers directly and stably employed by capital-intensive firms. However, the further one moves towards the precarious pole of the working class, the harder it becomes for the big unions to represent a contractually

fragmented and physically dispersed workforce. A multiplicity of organisational forms is thus adopted by different segments of the surplus working class: smaller and more radical unions, social

movement organisations, community associations, etc.

Many struggles led by precarious workers are centred in the community, where these working-class segments have more leeway to organise.9 It is true, as Silvia Federici wrote, that capital prefers ‘cooperation at the point of production,

separation and atomization at the point of reproduction’.10 However, in addition to the home, there are collective sites of reproduction such as educational institutes, public squa-

res, mutual aid projects, or cultural and sports centres. These points of reproduction can serve as the infrastructure, as well as the object, of community-centred mobilisations. Think for

example of how the defence of Istanbul’s legendary Gezi Park ignited the 2013 movement against Erdoğan’s authoritarian turn. The community is also the sphere in which workers experience most directly a material interest to counter the

ecological crisis, manifested in the needs for breathable air, drinkable water, healthy food, space and time for enjoying



8 Rodrigo Nunes, Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization,

London: Verso, 2021.

9 Ana C. Dinerstein, The Politics of Autonomy in Latin America: The Art of Organising

Hope, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

10 Silvia Federici, Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle,

Oakland (CA): PM Press, 2012, 146.



40

contact with non-human nature, etc. However, to maximise

their effectiveness, mobilisations for healthy ecosystems must somehow connect to the workplaces. The challenge of building political re-compositions between community and workplace

struggles is thus also the challenge for a convergence betwe-en different organisational forms. This does not mean fusion or homogenisation. Convergence rather implies collaboration between different organisations from their base, while keeping

the specificities that allow them to function effectively for their respective working-class segments.

The GKN Factory Collective’s long struggle is precisely about this. It is about experimenting an organising method in which the vertical tension expressed by union representatives affiliated

to a national structure is coupled with the plurality – in terms of political histories, geographic positions, strategies and tactics – of the climate justice movement. The international mobilisation

gathered around the former automotive factory in Campi Bisenzio exemplifies an ecosystem of different organisational forms that not only co-exist but also coordinate for a common goal, that of

a public-owned, worker-managed, socially integrated enterprise. After years of prevalent horizontalism, ambitious in its objectives but probably too unwieldy and dispersive, a collective of metalwor-kers embraced the struggle for the defence of life and asked those

willing to support it to test novel and bold assemblages: with sister organisations to reinforce historical ties, faraway ones to open new possibilities, individuals who after years of retreat recovered the

passion for militancy, workers of other industries and many more.

Struggling for a sustainable conversion of the Florentine site, the GKN Factory Collective is entrenching the vision that

another way of producing is possible and that workers’ knowledge can be a motor of this transformation. For what concerns orga-nising, there are no universal miracle recipes to flaunt – “Don’t ask us for the word that squares every corner”11 they seem to

keep repeating – because at the basis of any political process are collective responsibilities and skills. It is nonetheless certain that



11 Ossi di seppia Eugenio Montale, “Non chiederci la parola”, , Milan: Mondadori, 2024 [1925].



41

Francesca Gabbriellini and Lorenzo Feltrin



all the management and care structures of the GKN dispute –

from the permanent assembly to the liaison stewards,12 from the Reindustrialisation Group to the cook brigades, up to the artistic direction of the self-funding events – point in the direction of

this sought-after convergence between different realities, betwe-en hyper-specific claims and demands for a radical transforma-tion of everything – between runaways, neophytes, orphans of

mass parties and militant unions, grassroots activists and social centres, the big organisations of yesterday and the tides of today.

We are still far from the time to draw a balance sheet of the “method of convergence” and its impact on the movements and

organisations that have accepted its challenge. However, while there are objectives yet to be achieved – one above all, a fully intersectional articulation of the mobilisation – with respect to

the climate justice movement in Italy we can speak of a point of no return. Any ambiguity regarding the need to dismantle the employment blackmail and any retreat from the claim “End of

the month/end of the world, same fight” are and will be consi-dered reactionary. Likewise, any labour dispute that eludes the ecological question in the redesign of productive assets will no

longer have places to hide from the accusation of “monetising the climate crisis”. 13

The call launched by the Ex GKN dispute – which crossed national borders by intercepting spaces for reflection and sha-

ring in many other countries – is not however confined to the sole dimension of the social movements, grassroots organisations and communities that have gathered around the factory. Of no

secondary importance, in fact, is the challenge posed to Italy’s largest trade union confederation, of which the GKN workers – historically affiliated to the Federation of Metalworkers within the Italian General Confederation of Labour (FIOM-CGIL) –



12 The liaison stewards are factory activists tasked with representing workers from each unit

of the plant. They work alongside the union representatives officially recognised by the

employee representation system.

13 In the Italian labour movement, the “monetisation of noxiousness” was an expression used

to criticise the acceptance of “danger money” for particularly hazardous or health-damaging

tasks, as opposed to the eradication of noxiousness itself.



42

embody values and practices that, if recovered and generalised,

would bring so much benefit to trade unionism.

The Association of Social Promotion – Workers’ Mutual Aid Society (APS-SOMS) Insorgiamo, established shortly after the

outbreak of the dispute, highlights the trajectory of mutualism embraced by the organisation. The complexity of APS-SOMS Insorgiamo, founded in the fall of 2022, is evident even from

its name. APS, because – given the current legislation on the third sector – this is the organisational form that best suits the activities of the workers’ permanent assembly. SOMS, because

the historical legacy of the workers’ mutual aid societies echoed at every step of the dispute, capturing not only the aspects most closely linked to employment and wage demands, but also those of life beyond work, to be organised and valorised as moments

of self-determination, solidarity building, mutual aid, and fun. Finally, Insorgiamo, the watchword of the Florentine antifascist Resistance, adopted since the beginning of the struggle to un-

derline the ideal horizon that the workers consider as foundati-onal. This organisational tool was thus born from the workers’ permanent assembly, in synergy with the liaison groups and the

entire insurgent community, based on historical practices of the labour movement, on class solidarity, and on the idea that the active contribution of all is indispensable for a territory that wants to live with dignity. Can’t we discern, in these mutual aid

plots, new forms of enlarged community bargaining, capable of bringing back a vision of workers as full human beings beyond the workplace, reclaiming free time and energy to care for their

communities and social needs? Furthermore, isn’t the ecological planning developed in recent years a rediscovery and systematic implementation of the demand for “workers’ control” – part of

the history of the international labour movement – that is not exhausted in participation alone, but in a concrete contribution to redesigning how, what and how much to produce?

Another organisational instance of this dispute is its solidari-

ty network of researchers. Dismantling the vicious circle “publish or perish” to reclaim the public utility of research; bypassing the



43

Francesca Gabbriellini and Lorenzo Feltrin



self-styled ruling class on the terrain of industrial policy (which

has been inconsistent or, worse, oriented towards a conversion to the war economy); bringing jurisprudence to the rank-and-file, outside of the handbook, at the service of social change: these

are just some of the challenges that the GKN Factory Collective and the research network around it have undertaken. Let’s su-mmarise some of the articulations developed over the course of

the dispute to resist, plan, more forward. In the fall of 2021, a Solidarity Research Group was formed, mostly made up of preca-rious researchers, who contributed to the planning of a possible new sustainable course for the factory. This militant activation

of the academic world soon evolved into the Reindustrialisation Group, always operating alongside the Factory Collective and enriched with skills and professionalism from various fields, all

geared towards the development of industrial plans for the Flo-rentine site. This regeneration of the meaning of doing research is remarkable, considering its long duration and its capacity to

continuously develop strategies and practical implementations. In fact, the reindustrialisation projects have incessantly followed the political evolutions of the dispute, initially outlining a plan that looked to the future of the automotive sector, for the pro-

duction of components no longer for private cars and individual mobility, but for new fleets of electric or green hydrogen buses for public transport. However, no state authority has taken into

consideration the potential of investing in a public hub for susta-inable mobility. The workers and the research group thus had to rethink the entire project. This gave rise to a conversion plan,

defined as a “forced reindustrialisation”, focused on the produ-ction and recycling of solar panels and cargo bikes, as an element of continuity with the reflection on sustainable mobility.

The chosen ownership structure for the projected industrial

relaunch was that of the cooperative. This was also dictated by the synergy with the solidarity groups, particularly the Italian Network of Recovered Enterprises which, with its social research

group, promotes the mapping of such experiences and supports cooperative employment recovery in Italy. The GKN For Future



44

(GFF) cooperative was created in July 2023 with a capital initially

raised thanks to a crowdfunding, and then through a popular shareholding campaign that is still ongoing. Thousands of people and organisations from Tuscany to the United States, from Ger-

many to the Philippines, have secured a solidarity share package. Several hundred shareholders met in October 2024 in the factory for the first international assembly, opened by Greta Thunberg.

The infrastructure underlying this process was built through the re-composition, fusion and repurposing of previous working gro-ups, from the comrades involved in social media to those who deal with graphics and videos, from the world of solidarity rese-

arch to that of art and culture, moving on the same networking terrain. In short, every adequate assembly, rally, concert, demo and trip, every conference dedicated to industrial policy or the

ecological transition, was useful to tell the story of the conversion project and to gather support.

The group of lawyers in solidarity was also key. Or rather,

the groups. The first spent the initial months of the dispute wri-ting, together with the workers, a bill to contrast delocalisation. Similar to the Reindustrialisation Group, also on the legal front, the trajectories of solidarity work followed the development of

the dispute. In the fall of 2021, the priority was trying to ensure that Italy equipped itself with adequate regulations to prevent large multinational companies from prospering and then flee-

ing without answering to anyone, leaving behind unemployment, noxiousness, and a disintegrated social fabric. In the summer of 2024, when the reflection on the conversion plan “from below”

embraced the hypothesis of guaranteeing a future not only to GKN, but also to many other endangered jobs in the Florentine plain, people began reflecting on the establishment of an actual industrial consortium. Going beyond the single plant, reasoning

in a systemic perspective, effectively prefiguring the socially inte-grated public factory as a new productive ecosystem for the well--being of the overall community. No sooner said than done: a le-

gal solidarity group spent the summer of 2024 drafting, together with the Factory Collective, the regional bill for the establishment



45

Francesca Gabbriellini and Lorenzo Feltrin



of industrial consortia. This is a new industrial policy tool for the

benefit of workers in the entire Tuscan productive fabric, whose vulnerabilities are constantly growing.14 On 23 December 2024, after a process punctuated by accelerations and undertows and

a whole night of heated debate, the bill was approved by the Re-gional Council of Tuscany. There was no time to celebrate this success before the working groups got back to work to monitor

the concrete implementation of the consortium, because the law is not enough to bring it into existence. The energies, skills and power resources mobilised by the workers and their supporters

will be needed again and again.

Regardless of the final outcome of this struggle, the GKN Factory Collective has made history, changing the terms of the class-ecology question in Italy. Organising the convergence, kee-

ping the dispute as the linchpin of a comprehensive mobilisation for radical change. As a recent document produced by this pro-cess states: “Rearmament is the explicit negation of any climate

transition objective: the military industry and war are noxious by definition. […] This is why, today, our economic plan is the only viable one. The only plan to preserve life”. Almost simple

to state, complex and exhausting to pursue. How to arrive at working-class organisational ecologies solid enough to face the war regime is an open issue and, naturally, one not easy to solve. Yet, working in this direction means creating the conditions for

a winning alternative against our present of wars and genocides, growing inequalities and ecological devastation.



14 Leonardo Ghezzi and Nicola Sciclone (Eds), Fattori di vulnerabilità e velocità di crescita:

Cosa accadrà all’economia toscana?, Florence: IRPET, 2024.



46

Leonor Canadas1 and Sinan Eden2



Reporting Back from 10 Years



of Climate Jobs Campaigning3



1. Climate jobs campaigns were active in around ten countries,

with different degrees and kinds of success, between 2009

and 2023. (The countries we are aware of included the United

Kingdom, South Africa, Norway, Canada, Portugal, France, the

state of New York, Mauritius and the Philippines, plus a few

countries where there were looser contacts.) The campaign was

accompanied by a global network of the national campaigns.

The object of the Climate Jobs campaigns is defined to be

a government program that creates new, public sector jobs in

emission-reducing sectors of the economy while giving job

priority to those workers whose job posts would be extinct. Many

national campaigns produced reports on the impacts of such a

government program on employment, carbon dioxide emissions

and the economy. Some national campaigns sometimes focused

on specific sectors (like buildings or renewable energy).

As of 2025, we are not aware of any active climate jobs

campaign. At the same time, its narrative effects can be seen in

the just transition debates (particularly, as opposed market-led

policies) and its movement-level impacts can be traced to the

positions of labor unions on the climate crisis.



1 Leonor Canadas is a climate justice activist in Climáximo, based in Lisbon.

2 Sinan Eden is an activist in Climáximo and co-author of the recently published book »All

In: a revolutionary theory to stop climate collapse«

3 The article has been originally published at All In: a revolutionary theory to stop climate

collapse: https://all-in.now/article/reporting-back-from-10-years-of-climate-jobs-

campaigning-leonor-canadas-sinan-eden/



47

Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



As part of our effort for movement learning, we think it

to be good moment to report back, take stock and share our

reflections, in order to inform current and future attempts with

similar objectives.



2. We want to make some of our starting points explicit. 2.1. Sinan first heard about the campaign in the United Kingdom on

2015, and launched the campaign in Portugal in 2016 through

his involvement in the grassroots climate justice collective

Climáximo. He coordinated the Portuguese campaign for several

years, while also very active in the global network.

Leonor joined the campaign in 2020 during the COVID-19

pandemic and remained a core campaigner at the national and

international level for several years, organizing international

conferences and workshops.

So, we both had a good sense of how the campaigns were

evolving. Even so, our more detailed analysis comes from our

experience in Portugal. We will try to make explicit the possible

extent of our conclusions: some of our observations are context-

specific yet others seem generalizable.

2.2. We interpret the climate jobs campaigns as “class-informed

climate politics“. As such, the campaigns (and our lessons) interact

with Matthew T. Huber’s book Climate Change as Class War.

One can say that All In aims more for “climate-informed class

politics“. These are more or less the same thing, but the focus of

analysis changes. Huber analyzes class positions towards climate

collapse from the capitalists’ perspective and from the working

class perspective. He also emphasizes the dominant role the

“professional-managerial class” has played in framing the climate

debate and strategy. He then looks at class composition in the US,

concludes that 75% is working class whereas the professional-

managerial class remains a minority, which therefore puts a

strategic ceiling unless the latter assumes a deliberate shift to

working class politics.

Huber then suggests that the electricity sector workers should

be a strategic target for building a mass movement for climate



48

justice. Unfortunately, his argument remains analytical. He

doesn’t provide any empirical data to argue for the feasibility of

his proposal. To sustain such a specific strategic proposition, one

would expect interviews with union leadership, surveys with the

workers in the sector, focus groups with union delegates, or some

official union position papers.

With this article, we want to give such empirical feedback for

future organizers.



2.3. This is our attempt for movement-level learning. Our aim is not to

evaluate the campaigns. Our goal is that we fail forward.

We made mistakes. We also tried out some things spotlessly

yet they didn’t work anyway. Other attempts worked with limited

success. We discovered “embedded strategic ceilings” in some of

our approaches (successful in mobilizing or building alliances, up

to a certain point, yet the process itself generates constraints to go

further). Yet other approaches were indeed fully successful.

Many of what you’ll read below will be applicable to and

relevant for your context. Our goal is that you avoid repeating our

failures and instead can take new risks and make new mistakes.

In short, we don’t claim analytical rigor, we claim organizer’s

intuition. Our impressions (even if taken as pure “impressions”

rather than “data”) are still useful information.



3. This is meant to be an easy-read. We’ll now give a brief

history of the campaign in Portugal (4.) and the global climate

jobs network (5.). You might not need to read any of that, in

which case you can jump to 6 where we will list all the strategic

arguments in favor of launching a climate jobs campaign. Then

we will go over each argument and reflect on their degrees of

success, limitations, opportunities, and possible drawbacks.

Finally, we will get back to All In‘s terminology and reflect on the

campaign’s success as a movement-level intervention.



49

Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



History of the Portuguese Climate Jobs

Campaign



4. The climate jobs campaign in Portugal, Empregos para o Clima,

was launched in 2015/2016 when the anti-austerity mobilizations

were coming to an end and the climate summit in Paris was set to

result in an inconsequent agreement. Two left-wing parties (the

Left Bloc and the Portuguese Communist Party) were to play a

crucial role in the upcoming minority government by the Socialist

Party. The labor unions, heavily influenced if not fully controlled

by the Communist Party), have been on the streets together with

the precariat for years. And the climate movement was virtually

inexistent, organizing its first ever protests on the street.



4.1. First steps: The campaign was launched by the initiative of

Climáximo (a recently-formed grassroots climate justice group),

Precários Inflexíveis (an association of precarious workers) and

later GAIA (an environmental justice group). Over the years,

more than 20 organizations endorsed the campaign and varying

degrees of involvement in the campaign’s activities. These

organizations included environmental NGOs (like Quercus and

Zero), frontline collectives against new oil and gas projects (like

Peniche Livre de Petróleo and Alentejo Literal pelo Ambiente),

labor unions (like the teachers’ union, call center workers union

and public workers union) and grassroots groups (like Fridays for

Future), as well as organizations coming from other movements

(such as feminism, housing, animal rights and global justice).

The official launch was made on 1 May 2016, at the

demonstation of Workers Day, in Lisbon, and included a short

introductory booklet that was also used as outreach material.



4.2. Priorities: The campaign started by aiming for the more difficult

potential allies. Instead of seeking for support from the NGO

universe (which would give more endorsements but would also

produce a bubble), we went to the CGTP, the main labor union

confederation in Portugal, largely dominated by Communist Party

cadrés. This was a strategic choice. We wanted to try building these



50

bridges right from the start, create clean communication lines and

establish a direct relationship. Over the course of the campaign,

we organized hundreds of events and meetings with labor unions,

ranging from public sessions to internal workshops and trainings.

Sometimes they were about the campaign itself, sometimes about

the climate crisis, and sometimes about specific areas (for instance

transport, energy or employment).

4.3. Maturing: In 2017, the campaign published its first serious report,

titled “100 000 Climate Jobs”, already with the endorsement

of CGTP as well as active engagement of the teachers’ unions

SPGL (in Lisbon area) and SPN (in the north). It was also the

start of increased international involvement by the Portuguese

campaigners, reaching its peak with the Lisbon Just Transition

Gathering in 2018.

With the rise of the school strikes of Fridays for Future and the

actions of Extinction Rebellion, the campaign became central to

the climate debate in 2019, providing the main talking points for

the activists.



4.4. Innovation: In 2019, with the campaign report ready and a mass

movement accompanying it, the campaign entered a period of

distributed strategies. While the report provided a blueprint for

carbon neutrality in 2030, the campaigners realized the need for

more short-term measures in order to make the campaign into a

mobilization tool. So, the “10 measures to win in the next 4 years”

were launched. These were the policies that were the essential

first steps towards climate jobs which could be implemented

separately and immediately. Examples include “one day per week

for reskilliing of the workers fossil fuel industry”, “creation of a

public renewable energy company”, “creation of a public electric

bus company for intercity travel” and “reduction of the working

week to 32 hours”. These measures would also allow for partial

engagement by some groups who might not agree with the

totality of the climate jobs report.



4.5. Pandemic: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign’s mass

public investment and public employment argument took the



51

Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



main stage. With reduced possibilities of mobilization, a new and

much more detailed campaign report, “200 000 Climate Jobs”, was

published in 2021. This report addressed all the relevant sectors

into substantial detail, and is used as the policy basis for the

climate justice movements until today.



4.6. Experimentation: Coming out of the pandemic and reaching a

limit to organizational involvement, the campaigners decided in

2022 to open the processes to individuals. A first step was the

creation of Workers for Climate network. A second step was the

creation of working groups: Sines (an industrial hub in the south

of Portugal), public transport and public renewable energy.

Up until this point, the campaign’s processes were centralized

and semi-open. Organizations would endorse the campaign by

simply publishing a text of support on their website and allocating

a contact person. There were regular campaign meetings

(sometimes as frequent as biweekly), with one annual strategy

gathering (as part of the National Gathering for Climate Justice).

All of these meetings were open to the members of the endorsing

organizations. From 2022 onward, an individual could participate

in the campaign’s internal processes.

This strategic choice was informed by the following factors:

We thought that all the organizations that would agree with the

campaign’s main statement were already in and that all the key

organizations were already aware of the campaign. We also realized

that a lot of individual workers were excited with the campaign

although they couldn’t involve their union yet. We concluded that

Joining these activists could activate and empower them.

The three working groups all produced their own strategic

priorities, plan of activities, and ladders of engagement. A case

study on just transition in Sines (English version here) was published

in 2022 and a report on public renewable energy (Empowering

the Future) was published in 2023. The corresponding working

groups also produced pamphlets, local and thematic events.



4.7. By 2023, Sinan and Leonor were frustrated with the campaign

reaching its seventh year without any major victory, and gradually



52

dropped out. (This was also reflected in the divestment of

Climáximo in the campaign’s activities.) The campaign then

decided to focus on public transport. However, the Portuguese

campaign has been inactive since October 2024.



History of the Global Climate Jobs network



5. Globally, the climate jobs campaign’s first steps can be traced

back to the first One Million Climate Jobs pamphlet prepared

by the Campaign Against Climate Change in 2009 in the

United Kingdom, and the simultaneous launch of a climate jobs

campaign in South Africa, led by The Alternative Information and

Development Centre.



5.1. The campaign was initially a loose network of activists working

at the intersection of labor and climate, with a short pamphlet

prepared in 2015. As of 2018 (with the dedication of the

Portuguese campaigners) it became a stable platform of dialogue,

skill-share and collaboration. The Lisbon Just Transition

Gathering in 2018 was a major step, as were the online Global

Climate Jobs conference in 2022 and the in-person Global Climate

Jobs conference in 2023. The global network is inactive since then.



5.2. Throughout the fifteen years of the network’s existence, more

national campaigns were launched and individual contacts were

established in the labor movement. Many of those national

campaigns are also discontinued at the moment.

There was quite some positive feedback loops between the

campaign and the climate mobilizations, the Trade Unions

for Energy Democracy network, and the international labor

movement. Campaigners were regularly invited to international

conferences organized by labor union confederations.



Arguments in favor of Climate Jobs



6. Phew, this was a long introduction. Now let’s get to business.

We will first start with listing all the opportunities and

strengths that we foresaw in the campaign.



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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



Then we will go over them one by one, recount our experience

and share our learning.(Afterwards, we will return to the

language of All In, reframe the campaign as a movement-level

intervention, and reformulate our evaluation.)

We produced a series of talking points for the campaign. These

could implemented as strategic emphasis in a meeting with new

organizations, as arguments in a public debate, or as core message

in a media engagement. They were:



1. solving two crises at once: Similar to the slogan “end of the

world, end of the month; same fight”, the campaign would

produce a net 200 000 decent public jobs, in a country that went

through brutal austerity measures, while cutting the emissions to

virtually zero by 2030.

2. leaving the environmentalist bubble: Engaging with social

issues that engage majorities (unemployment, poverty, labor

conditions) would increase the reach of the climate justice fight.

3. existing popular support: There is universal support on climate

policies in Portugal, and simultaneously employment and the

economy have been ranking first in people’s policy priorities for

years.

4. against the austerity logic: Similar to Huber’s argument against

degrowth (due to it reinforcing the echo chamber of professional

class activism) and as opposed to “consuming less”, the campaign

argued for massive public investment to make things differently. This

would meet the people where they are and still produce a desirable

vision of future in the short-term.

5. a grassroots perspective: In contrast to technocratic governance,

the campaign was built bottom-up, by civil society organizations

representing the working people. The campaign’s success would

also come hand in hand with people’s power.

6. fighting “for” something: While many movements fought

against something (fossil fuels, privatizations, austerity measures),

a fight in favor of a better world could produce a different kind of

motivation and a longer commitment.



54

7. a social plan for transition: Rather than market-oriented policies

that “incentivized” companies to perhaps do something, the

campaign focused on the actual task at hand: we need to shut down

the fossil fuels and scale up renewables, this is a lot of work to do,

so we need workers who would be willing to do those jobs. This

approach focused on the social aspects (working conditions, public

sector jobs, priority to workers who lose their job posts) rather than

financial parameters. This social plan would be able to overcome

the drawbacks of the neoliberal “green” policies.

8. the National Climate Service analogy: Opposing the

“profitability” logic, the campaign underlined the non-

negotiability of a livable planet. The climate jobs are necessary.

In that way, the campaign’s demand resembles the National

Healthcare, a completely consensual system in many countries.

This would allow us to overcome the so-called “economic realism”

and shift the focus away from saving the companies in favor of

saving the people and the planet.

9. the analogy to Second World War economic mobilizations:

Comparing the effort (in terms of public investment, resources and

labour) necessary for the complete re-structuring of the economy

and productive systems for the energy transitions, with the Second

World War when social priorities were drastically changed.

10. addressing the false dilemma between jobs and climate:

Proposing governmental programs and arguing that a socially

just energy transition would actually require a lot of new jobs,

even after retraining of and giving job priority to workers in the

polluting industries.

11. system change can only be the outcome of class struggle:

Arguing that only a working class-led mass movement could

deliver the radical socio-economic transformations necessary

to tackle the climate crisis, which implies rejecting market

mechanisms and insisting in working class leadership.



These eleven arguments are clearly not mutually exclusive,

and they all point towards the same direction. However, a careful value-based analysis showed us that some would work better than others in certain contexts.

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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



7. Now let’s see how the campaign put these arguments into practice.

Were they effective? Were they robust? Were they successful? Were

there other disabling factors that we hadn’t paid attention to? Were

there specific contexts in which novel aspects came into sight?



7.1. Solving two crises at once: This worked but only as a defensive

position.



• Almost no organization whom we reached through the anti-

austerity movement got inspired by a climate jobs campaign

as their main answer. No political party took the campaign to

its logical conclusion of producing decent jobs for hundreds of

thousands of people. In short, the campaign did not effectively

solve two crises at once.

• However, the fact that climate jobs (not as campaign but as public

policy) could solve two crises at once is a powerful argument.

The exact numbers in the campaign report gave us a strong hand

against voices opposing climate action. Overall, this argument

was useful in shifting active opposition to passive opposition as

well as passive opposition into neutral positions, as quite some

people and organizers who initially had some reserves against

climate action got interested in possible outcomes.

• In concrete, this produced more logos and endorsements to the

campaign, but not more engagement or commitment.



7.2. Leaving the environmentalist bubble: This was a complete

disillusionment.



• We thought the campaign would help us talk about a topic that

would engage majorities and thereby take the environmentalist

bubble outside of its issue-based, technocratic approach. However,

environmentalist groups didn’t give the campaign more than their

endorsement. This was not because NGOs did not find the campaign

as the right tool to reach masses. It was because (and explicitly

because) environmentalist groups, dominated by middle-class and

upper-middle-class folks, did not consider it strategically relevant to

have mass involvement in the movement. The campaign could serve

a purpose, but they didn’t have that purpose in the first place.



56

• Since the bubble remained intact, we leaving it meant that we

got out of it. Our relative success in reaching out to other groups

was not fruitful from a hegemony-building perspective. At

some point, the campaign had 25 supporting organizations. It

was the most diverse civil society initiative (on any topic) with

a reasonable structure, process and activity plans. This didn’t

translate into convergence because as we the campaigners left the

bubble, the environmentalists remained there. So it actually left

us isolated from the climate movement.

• One consequence was that the campaign ended up being more

left-wing than initially designed. This matters. Moderates are

not only moderates, they are also disinterested in uncomfortable

alliances.



7.3. Existing popular support: This was perhaps the trickiest to

evaluate.



• Obviously, “generalized concern about the climate crisis” doesn’t

automatically translate into “popular support for a mass public

investment program”. Climate policies are still largely defined by

market logic, and energy transition policies are seen through the

lens of just transition for corporate profits and redundancies for

workers.

• There is however another problem with equating “support” with

“action”, because they typically come as opposites. In many opinion

surveys, “support” for a certain topic is itself framed as support

to something that someone else is doing. At most, “support” is

measured by how much sacrifice a person would make for a policy

change. In all these situations, the question is never how mobilizing

and mobilizable the topic is.

• When people don’t have a personal commitment with a cause,

the shift from “something should be done” to “this thing should

be done” becomes slippery. We observed quite some de-

responsabilization (i.e. delegating responsibility to some other

entity) and a lot of frustrating “abstract” discussions around

climate jobs.



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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



7.4. Against the austerity logic: We failed to pull this off, but in this

case we cannot dissociate our incompetence from other factors.

So we draw little lessons for future organizers.



• By the time the campaign was launched (in 2016) the financial

crisis was over in the sense that the state budget was recovering

balance. Austerity policies remained intact, of course. But the

austerity discourse became much less present. Therefore, being

against austerity lost relevance as a mobilization narrative.

• In 2020, with COVID-19 and with the return of austerity in a

“naturalized” form, we tried again. Like elsewhere, the Portuguese

government injected money to companies and provided for

some relief to working class people. The overarching mainstream

narrative equated the pandemic with economic hardship. We

tried building a mass movement around the main talking points

of the climate jobs campaign. We failed in practice. This might

be because of general inaction by social movements at the time,

it might be that we made a wrong reading of the social context

(expecting suppressed outrage that could be triggered).

• In short, we genuinely don’t know if there is something to gain by

contrasting the campaign against austerity logic that would not be

covered by the solving two crises approach (7.1).



7.5. A grassroots perspective: This is a self-contradicting expectation.



• It is the campaign’s strength that it engages with the institutional

framework, proposing large-scale public policies. It is also why

it appeals to large movement structures, like the labor unions or

NGOs. A civil society proposal to tackle the climate crisis has

social credibility.

• In contrast, these institutional actors are (by definition) inserted

in the institutions of the system and therefore a civil society

proposal doesn’t translate into people’s power as a strategic

priority.

• Therefore, most of the campaign’s organizations found in the

campaign strong talking points for lobbying rather than a genuine

grassroots perspective.



58

• We had a few grassroots attempts. One example is when a

photovoltaic panel factory in the Alentejo region was closed

down and the state didn’t intervene. We went there, talked with

the workers, didn’t find any militancy to insist in the maintenance

of the factory (neither in the labor unions nor in the community).

Our intervention, sadly, ended up being limited to some press

releases and some videos of solidarity.



7.6. Fighting “for” something: We have no reason to believe this

approach works.



• There has been been a perpetuation, namely by academics and

NGOs (to which we have been accomplices to, and to some extent

even part of) that we must give people something to “fight for”

rather than something to fight against (“because people are sick

and tired of listening about what is wrong in the world, and that

such a discourse demobilizes people; people become cynical if

they are not presented with the alternatives; rather people need to

be inspired about the possibility to fight for a better future.”).

• The campaign tried to do that by providing a vision and a plan for

what addressing the climate crisis actually meant. This approach

did not produce results anywhere close of a mass movement. And

we haven’t seen it work elsewhere, except for electoral campaigns

through populist leadership.

• Every time we have seen masses of people taking part in protests and

movements, it has been because they were angry or even shocked

and outraged (not necessarily about something that happened to

them, or that affected them directly). Some of the people joining to

mass movements actually have a vision for what they are fighting for;

usually movement organizers have their own vision as well. But they

don’t need an agreement between all organizers and all participants

about what the solutions and alternatives would be.

• Lessons from other movements, as well as the experience of

organizing the Climate Jobs Campaign taught us that mass

movements have mostly mobilized people against something (a policy,

a government, a regime, a system, etc.) by activating their anger and

sense of justice, rather than by offering a clear something to fight for.



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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



7.7. A social plan for transition: This is not an entry-level argument

but is useful to keep in the background for the newly engaged

activists.



• Anchoring the conversation away from words like “transition” and

“incentives” and in the direction of “actually cutting emissions”

is helpful for keeping the conversation on-topic. We found

this particularly useful when talking to new activists and new

organizations, as many came up with doubts about what “climate

action” would serve for in a neoliberal context.

• It was also empowering to introduce the idea of a “from the

bottom and to the left” proposal, when new people got involved

in the campaign.

• However, given the reign of “the market” in public discourse,

insisting in a “a plan by the people for the people” is not a

mobilizing language. In our experience, people who aren’t already

activated are not converted by a “people’s power” language.



7.8. The National Climate Service analogy: This analogy is helpful in

specific contexts but cannot be a main talking point for tackling

the climate crisis.



• Tackling the climate crises demands large scale economic

planning and public investment which calls for some kind of

public body to coordinate, regulate, ensure and be accountable for

the necessary actions.

• However the necessary level of action means systemic changes

impacting all sectors of the economy. These will indeed demand

changes in all the emitting sectors: electricity, all kinds of

transport (including aviation), construction, waste management,

food, etc.

• So, the analogy seems helpful in arguing for the irrelevance of the

costs and revenue from climate action, as it should be addressed

as a public key service, comparable to the services of guaranteeing

access to healthcare and education for all. However it becomes

too complex and confusing of an analogy, when one tries to

present it in more detail.



60

• Hence, we found it not always very useful and “at-hand”, and it

proved to be an irrelevant argument when addressing labor unions

and other forms of sectorially organized working class structures.



7.9. The analogy to Second World War economic mobilizations:

While helpful as a proof of large scale fast economic

transformation, this argument reinforces a view that delegates the

task to “politicians”.



• Such analogy was helpful in articulating the possibility of a having

a coordinated large-scale fast economic plan for the energy

transition. It requires leaving a side a key point, which is the one

of the economic interests of the capitalist class in both of the

examples in the analogy. We saw this work quite well.

• At the same time, the analogy is useless if people to not believe,

beforehand, that the climate crisis imposes a much more radical

shift in social priorities, than the one which happened during the

WWII economic mobilizations.

• It seems that, even if interesting, the analogy produced nothing

beyond hope that some policymaker, some government, or some

entity, at some point, would act upon an upcoming emergency.

It nevertheless failed to produce the right emotions that would

motivate action, and to target people’s sense of responsibility to act.



7.10 Addressing the false dilemma between jobs and climate: This

is not the right argument to win if you want to produce militancy.



• We made this argument very clearly and explicitly, as it was intrinsic

to the definition of climate jobs. Nevertheless, we know (and workers

also know) that under the neoliberal regime, the shutting down of

fossil infrastructure and investment on “green” infrastructure will

not ensure a just transition for workers. Even when there is job

creation under “green investment policies”, these jobs are in no way

connected to a social plan for a just transition, which means there

are no guarantees that the jobs created are allocated to workers who

lost their jobs. Guaranteeing this would actually demand social and

transformative power from the labor movement and the climate

justice movement, which none currently holds.



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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



• It is not possible to get unions or workers to dismiss this jobs vs

climate paradigm, because they know that this dilemma is only

false under a different socioeconomic model. In the current one,

it is a real dilemma.

• So the argument is actually not that there is no jobs vs climate

dilemma, but rather that there is an existential dilemma between

capitalism and life on this planet, and that there are no jobs on a

dead planet.

• Similarly to what we said in 7.1, by making sure that our proposal

would not reinforce the dilemma, we managed to get more logos

and endorsements for the campaign, but this did not translate

into more engagement or commitment.



7.11. System change can only be the outcome of class struggle:

This presupposes winning the argument on the need for system

change, which the campaign on its own cannot achieve.



• This one was more directed at left-oriented organizations. But even

in this subset, the argument that the climate crisis requires radical

socioeconomic transformations was not a given.

• Not all organizations (including labor unions) who would agree

to somehow get involved in and support the campaigns would

accept capitalism as the root cause of the climate crisis. Hence,

they would not look at climate collapse as a working-class issue.

Rather they would be involved mostly due to an understanding

that the energy transition brings “challenges” and novelty to the

labor market, to which unions must be prepared for.



Arguments in favor of a Climate Jobs

campaign



8. So far, we talked about climate jobs as a strategic proposal (to

the general public and to the organizers). Thus, our analysis was

detached from the movement ecosystem in which the campaign

lived. Now let’s direct our focus to the movement-level dimension.

(This section will interact with the terminology used in All In,



62

but we will not assume that you read the book already or that you

remember everything in it.)

There were three ways in which the campaign was a

movement-level intervention.



9. The first one was to engage with the institutional capability,

which can be defined as “engaging in systematizing demands and

consolidating victories”.



9.1. The most important symbolic victory here is that the Climate

Law (which gives the framework for all subsequent legislation)

approved in 2021 specifically says that “the State promotes a just

transition to a carbon neutral economy by … creating climate

jobs” (Article 69a).



9.2. Having celebrated this symbolic victory, we must report that no

political party raised climate jobs as their banner. Although we

had the same intentions, we failed to build the same popular

and left-populist agenda that the Green New Deal unleashed in

several countries.



9.3. On the labor union side, we had some hope in engaging in

sector-specific union activity. However, in Portugal the entire

energy sector (production, transmission and distribution) is

fully privatized. This means that a demand for public sector jobs

presupposes nationalizations of some sort, which sounded too

far-fetched even for the most combative unions. This handicap is

less valid for the transport sector, which is still dominated by public

companies. In the case of transport, we had minor but significant

moments of solidarity in anti-privatization campaigns.

In general, we failed to shift the “just transition” discussion

within the unions from a defensive one (transition only if “just”)

into a propositional one (just transition from the bottom to the left).



9.4. Leonor recently wrote about the institutional capability of the

European climate justice movement. Here we start with the

campaign and look at the movement. In her article, she starts

with the movement and situates the campaign in it.



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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



10. The second one was to aim at some narrative capability, which

is the movement’s skills on influencing the public narrative.



10.1. We had one substantial success. The climate justice movement

as a whole, including during its peak in the Global Climate Strike

of September 2019, raised climate jobs as its main banner. This

contributed significantly to the politicization of the young climate

activists. The campaign serving as a simple tool to engage in

policy discussions, the movement was capable of highlighting (in

concrete and empirical ways) how the governments were failing

to tackle the climate crisis.



10.2. Overall, the market-oriented takeover of the green jobs and

just transition was too powerful for the campaign to counter.

In the public debate, Climate Jobs could not provide a narrative

capability as strong as Green New Deals did.



10.3. Even within the labor movement, over the course of eight

years, we did not manage to create a substantial perceived

differentiation between green jobs and climate jobs.



11. The third one was to engage with a small yet powerful percentage

of the working class – organized labor from carbon intensive

sectors. These are the workers that could directly engage into

economical and political struggle for a just transition, and

withdraw their labor from these sectors.



11.1. Similar to in other countries, the unions who engaged the most

in the campaign were those coming from sectors that are not

directly affected from a fossil fuel phase-out. In Portugal, we had

the support of the teachers’ union, public servants union and

the call center workers union. Their engagement was therefore

secondary and they wouldn’t turn the campaign into a core

demand within their agenda.

11.2. We had also hoped to open up debates on how a workers-led

transition could look like, what demands this could entail, and what

kind of workplace disputes could be generated through this process.

These hopes did not materialize as they required a transformative

political approach which the unions have lost over the decades.



64

11.3. Nevertheless, CGTP’s support to the campaign played a

significant role in delaying a negative public stance by the unions

to climate action in general. The first outright anti-climate

statement came as late as 2022 from Fiequimetal, the federation

comprising workers in energy and heavy industry.



Lessons and Observations



12. We reached this point, but we are still not being very empirical.

The paragraphs 6 and 7 were applicable to almost any modern

society (with some adjustments). The paragraphs 8, 9, 10 and

11 treat “the movement” as an abstraction rather than the

actual living beings and actually existing organizations that we

interacted with, and could therefore apply to diverse contexts. In

both of the previous sections, we started analytically and provided

supporting empirical evidence. However, we had promised (in 2.) to

do the opposite: put the empirical evidence at the center.

So let’s shift our angle for one last time. Let’s start with

our observations as campaigners, and then see how these

observations relate to the abstract categories above.



12.1. If you didn’t win the climate emergency argument, then you

won’t win the ambition discussion. Climate emergency cannot be

sidelined. It cannot be downgraded to climate change or climate

policy.

The campaign relied on institutional actors taking up climate

jobs as their banner to move into an offensive position. It

therefore also relied on some kind of internal reflection within

those same movement actors (NGOs, labor unions, political

parties alike) on our generalized ambition deficit and how it

relates to our theories of change and grand strategies.

Stepping up in such a way requires the recognition of the state

of emergency in which we currently are. Without this realization,

the campaign gets reduced to a mere policy research group.



12.2. We must understand that there is no just transition for the

unions themselves.



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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



An employee of a union in a big, well-unionized refinery is

experienced in the area and has gained the trust of the workers.

You are typically talking to this employee as part of your alliance

building process.

However, this employee knows quite well that if that refinery is

closed down, even if all workers are safely transferred to climate

jobs, the union power will be diminished. Firstly, renewable

energy typically disperses workers and they would have to

unionize from scratch. Secondly, in many cases the union itself

is different (for instance if a refinery is in chemical industry but

the new jobs are in the electricity sector). Thirdly, there is no

“retraining” program for the specific union employee so they

might actually become redundant unless they can catch up with a

very step learning curve.

These are non-theoretical, non-abstract, actual concerns that

unions and unionists have, for which we have no solutions.



12.3. You must find the sweet spot between respecting the union

structure and engaging with the rank and file.

We couldn’t find it.

We were mostly cordial to the union structure and didn’t

go directly to workers. This is also because we were aware of

the loyalty of the workers to their unions, so we understood

that jumping over the union would be taken as hostile attitude.

However, this meant that unless we convinced a specific and

small amount of union activists, we couldn’t make progress.

In the rare cases that we talked to the workers without

mediation, it was still the case that they needed to take action

through the union processes so we lost contact.



12.4. Climate jobs was (and is) an essential policy tool for the climate

justice movement.

The campaign reports informed the Global Climate Strike, the

later actions by Fridays for Future, the action camps of Climáximo

as well as other campaigns (fossil gas, aviation, private jets, etc.).

These mobilizations therefore had a good policy background

(the spokespersons were credible and could sustain sophisticated

policy discussions) and had a good radicalization pipeline (well



66

beyond the “there is no planet B”, the activists quickly understood

the socioeconomic stakes at hand).



12.5. No one from the labor movement stepped up.

Beyond a few individual sympathizers, we didn’t find any

organization in the labor movement to step up, take the climate

crisis seriously in its agenda, and fight for it.

This is consistent with the strategic conformism within historical

unions. However, one could expect that newly emerging unions

could take a different, more combative stance. This didn’t come true.



What we make out of all this



13. We said in the beginning of this article that we were writing it

because it was a good moment to take stock. There is one more

reason: We believe that many of these lessons can be immediately

transferred to some of the current experimentations in the

climate justice movement.

We have been seeing two emerging strands within the climate

justice movement: (1) those who recognize the (latent/potential)

disruptive power of the unions. (2) those who focus on engaging

masses in the movement. The starting premises for both are spot

on: we need mass engagement in the movement and some of us

have to focus on chains of value production.

Experiments in this area include the housing/tenants

organizing around energy poverty and the public transport

campaigns (we are not including Huber’s proposal on the

electricity workers because we are not aware of a concrete

working group on it).

However, we would like to highlight that we cannot afford to

repeat previous mistakes because we don’t have time for them.

We identify three crucial weaknesses in both of these strands.



13.1. Firstly, they seem to depart from wishful thinking and stick to

this attitude (in some cases, for years). They seem to solely rely

on words like “patience”, “relationship-building” and “community

organizing”, and use these words to avoid setting up measurable

goals and monitoring them with a critical eye.



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Leonor Canadas and Sinan Eden



13.2. Secondly, we live in times of emergency. This means that we

cannot repeat the community organizing playbooks written

in the 1970s. We must innovate substantially in order to fit

those practices with the climate deadlines while not creating

illusions of shortcuts. (Otherwise, we must drastically reduce

the scope of our ambitions and claim that we are just doing

outreach / awareness raising without any ambition to organize

and mobilize.) For instance, we must have checks and balances

mechanisms within our campaigns that are much more frequent

than usual.

13.3. Thirdly, we cannot lie to people. If we actually believe that in

any country of the Global North there shall be zero emissions by

2030, then we cannot hide this information for long. We would

simply be avoiding the divisive line, the main problem to solve.

Therefore, diverting the conversation away is not the way to have

substantial convergence nor would we be able to build trust.

Many activists are reading North American literature on

community organizing but that literature in general avoids

systemic change as an option. This can be compensated to some

extent by the critical pedagogy strand developed by Paulo Freire,

where we can also learn about how we can remain assertive of our

political anchors.



14. With this long report, we wish to contribute to movement

learning. It is our hope that comrades who launch similar

organizations or campaigns get to fail forwards and make new

mistakes, instead of repeating ours.



68





PART II




Zoi Christina Siamanta1



Conceptualizing Alternatives



to Contemporary Renewable



Energy Development:



Community Renewable Energy



Ecologies (CREE)2



Abstract: Privately-owned, state-owned and public-private renewable energy (RE) projects are increasingly criticized by social scientists. They can involve dispossessions, management and financial inequalities,

and environmental problems. Research also indicates that Community Renewable Energy (CRE) projects are not without problems and dangers. In this article, I go beyond critique of renewable energy projects, without

abandoning them, to develop an alternative affirmative framework for RE production in the face of mounting climate and ecological crises. I employ a productive approach to rethink RE development, that

combines the diverse and community economies perspective developed by J.K. Gibson-Graham with political ecology research on alternative economies. Building on this approach and RE and CRE literature, I develop the notion of Community Renewable Energy Ecologies

(CREE). CREE signify community economies involved in small-scale RE prosumption (production and consumption), or medium-scale RE prosumption and sale of energy. They adopt non- and alternative

capitalist relations of ownership, production, exchange and circulation.



1 Zoi Christina Siamanta is a human geographer and political ecologist, currently

collaborating with the Department of History and Philosophy of Science of the National

and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

2 This contribution has been originally published in the Journal of Political Ecology 28(1),

47-69. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2297



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Zoi Christina Siamanta



CREE are engaged in collective ethico-political decision-making, and an oikopolitics embodying care for and affective relations with humans and more-than-humans. Such decision-making and oikopolitics are directed

towards more ‘thriving’ and egalitarian socio-ecological futures. I identify particular ethico-political orientations for CREE and provide specific considerations for their constitutive elements (e.g. ownership,

finance, labor, infrastructure). CREE reflect one of multiple possibilities for alternative sustainabilities in a pluriversal world.



Keywords: Renewable energy, capitalism, affect, community economies, climate change, commoning



Introduction



Renewable Energy (RE) development under utility-scale and

smaller state-owned, privately-owned or public-private projects is increasingly criticized by social scientists –including politi-cal ecologists– given the adverse dynamics, dispossessions and

environmental problems observed in different cases (e.g. Dun-lap 2019; Rignall 2016). Meanwhile, some academics argue that Community Renewable Energy (CRE) is a (possible) means for democratizing the energy transition, that does or can provide

numerous benefits to local communities contributing to soci-o-ecological sustainability. Others are more cautious towards CRE, revealing weaknesses in its celebratory accounts (e.g. Ber-

ka and Creamer 2018; van Veelen 2018). CRE involves problems and risks too (e.g. Johnson and Hall 2014; Schreuer 2016). In this article, I transgress a critique of community and non-community RE to conceptualize one of several possible pathways for human

and more-than-human prosperity in the face of mounting ca-pitalogenic environmental crises, rethinking renewable energy development for alternative sustainabilities. For this purpose, I

first examine the benefits, problems and dangers of CRE. Then, I discuss the diverse and community economies approach deve-loped by J.K. Gibson-Graham, and contributions bridging poli-



72

tical ecology with the ‘diverse economies’ perspective. Building

from this, I develop an alternative affirmative framework for RE development under the notion of Community Renewable Energy Ecologies (CREE). CREE signify community economies engaged

in small-scale energy ‘prosumption’ (production and consu-mption), or medium-scale renewable energy prosumption and sale, according to alternative modes of ownership, production,

exchange and circulation. CREE, as envisioned here, are involved in collective ethico- political decision-making embodying care for and affective relations with humans and more-than-humans. They are engaged in an oikopolitics directed towards more ‘viva-

cious’ and egalitarian ways of becoming, together with humans and others. I identify particular ethico-political orientations for CREE and provide reflections for their constitutive elements to

consider (e.g. concerning ownership, finance, labor, infrastruc-ture, and technology). Reframing (C)RE development under this notion and framework widens the possibilities for social expe-

rimentation with more equitable and ‘thriving’ socio-ecological futures beyond capitalism.



CRE: benefits, problems and risks



Following Walker and Devine-Wright (2008), Community Re-newable Energy projects are typically understood as energy or

heat generation projects using renewable energy technologies, where communities have a high degree of ownership and control over energy. Much less widespread than commercial renewable energy projects, thousands of CRE projects exist across the world.

They are diverse in their organization and ownership, including trusts and cooperatives. They have different motivations behind them, are of different scales, and involve various actors including

nongovernmental organizations and the state. CRE literature explores, inter alia, the benefits and problems of projects (e.g. Berka and Creamer 2018; van der Waal 2020), the factors influ-

encing their outcomes (e.g. Guerreiro and Botetzagias 2018; Ma-driz-Vargas et al. 2018) and their transformative capacity. Trans-



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formative capacity is examined through the viewpoints of energy

democracy, degrowth, and social justice (e.g. Burke and Stephens 2018; Rommel et al. 2018; van Veelen 2018). The net assessment is that CRE projects provide numerous benefits. These include:

greater participation in energy decisions and local autonomy; community or individual empowerment; local socio-economic development; enhancing distributional justice; development of

skills and knowledge; and encouraging environmental-friendly behaviors and attitudes (e.g. Hicks and Ison 2011; Walker and Devine-Wright 2008). However, robust evidence for the actual be-nefits and implications created in practice is thin (Berka and Cre-

amer 2018; Creamer et al. 2018; van der Waal 2020; van Veelen 2018). Most research has been conducted in the Global North, centring on the UK, Denmark, Germany, the USA and Australia.

Some uncritical celebratory assertions have been made about the (expected) socio-ecological benefits of CRE.

The signifier ‘community’ does not necessary entail socially

just or progressive outcomes. Indeed, CRE projects are highly variegated, influenced by numerous internal and external factors and not without adverse dynamics and dangers. In the following sub-sections, I examine the purported benefits (e.g. empower-

ment, local economic development, skills/knowledge develo-pment) against actual benefits, problems and risks. I also discuss further benefits, risks and parameters not usually or adequately

addressed by CRE literature (e.g. cultural benefits, interrelation-ships with resource extraction). The sub-sections summarize the key socio-ecological implications and aspects of CRE as sugge-

sted by the literature.



Participation, empowerment and equality



Community renewable energy projects facilitate local partici-pation in forming energy futures, enhancing procedural justice, and can also empower local communities (e.g. MacArthur and

Matthewman 2018) and women (Madriz-Vargas et al. 2018). They offer a pathway for greater local autonomy and self-determination



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compared especially to utility-scale renewable energy provision.

For example, MacArthur and Matthewman (2018) discuss energy production and efficiency initiatives undertaken by and partne-red with Maori Iwi in New Zealand, including large (co)owned

geothermal plants and smaller RE microgeneration projects (e.g. photovoltaics). Although not devoid of tensions and struggles, they offer Iwi a pathway for greater control over their own soci-

oeconomic development and, thus, for self-determination (ibid).

A key equity concern for CRE is that wealthier and knowled-geable socioeconomic groups can dominate community energy programs, reflecting existing socioeconomic inequalities (e.g.

Creamer et al. 2018; Johnson and Hall 2014; Schreuer 2016). For instance, in Germany, CRE initiatives tend to be dominated by men and individuals who are more knowledgeable about how

to participate in civil society organizations (Radtke 2014). Par-ticipants tend to be well-educated with good incomes (monthly gross incomes of US$3,829 [€3,500] and above, in Radtke’s study).

Research on local-scale development projects involving renewa-ble energy in the Global South indicates gender inequalities, in part because gender is ignored in program development (Ahlborg 2017; Winther et al. 2018). Some studies mention the inability

of poor individuals to obtain electricity from such community projects and similar ones (e.g. Ahlborg 2017; Palit et al. 2013).

Hostile policy frameworks can undermine empowerment.

For instance, van der Waal (2020) notes that a small community wind project on a Scottish island remains vulnerable to poli-cy change around government subsidy mechanisms leading to

reduced revenues, and decisions not to extend the transmissi-on grid. Mey and Diesendorf (2018) explore the evolution of the CRE field in Denmark, focusing on community wind power. They highlight that with a strong dependency on state facilitation and

an institutional preference for advancing wind technology to reduce emissions, the field has become vulnerable and the so-cial principles of CRE have suffered. The Danish government

provided financial and regulatory support for incentivizing CRE initiatives, facilitating the institutionalization of the field’s key



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principles (ibid). In Austria, co-owned and co-operated wind and

solar plants have progressively been incorporated into established structures, and adapted to the prevailing sociotechnical regime and economy. This is because they have been scaled up, and taken

up by utility companies. Their initial aims have drifted in the process (Schreuer 2016); participation has weakened, and utilities decide on plant management and operation.

Ahlborg (2017) examines a mini-hydropower electrifica-tion project in a poor village in Tanzania, funded by national

and international donors and implemented and initially owned by an international development organization.3 She describes a tension between empowerment and dominance because of the

project, reflecting growing social inequality. However, some social hierarchies were destabilized within the community, with some individuals experiencing greater social mobility.

For example, the NGO prevented local leaders from holding influential positions in the utility and, thus, ordinary villagers gained control over the technical system and service delive-ry limiting the influence of local elites. While some positive

outcomes were observed (e.g. opening of political ‘spaces’ for shifting power relations within the community), the pro-ject was formed by a development logic originating “at higher

levels where donors control the financial and time frames of working processes, and project objectives, strategy and system design are based on norms of established development practice

and expert knowledge of designing electric power systems” (p. 133). Palit et al. (2013) explore India’s Village Energy Security Programme, where village energy committees (VECs) own and run decentralized village programs involving renewable

bioenergy with assistance from external institutions. They mention, amongst other things, inadequate empowerment of, and training of these committees in many cases. Hinshelwo-

od (2001) shows how external organizations that offered to support a community wind project in the UK (including par-tial funding) tried to impose their agendas and modify the



3 This NGO later transferred ownership to the local utility once it was established.



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project’s initial ideas and plan, threatening local control of it.

Different types of organizations are involved in CRE and ca-pacity-building efforts (Hicks and Ison 2011; Palit et al. 2013).

To summarize, CRE projects can lose their transformative capacity over time as others step in, adapting to prevailing econo-mic models and energy systems. CRE projects frequently have to

adapt to policy frameworks and the market, and more powerful actors can seize control. Individuals can become marginalized and even vulnerable. If unequal power relations within, and in

relation to, communities (e.g. regarding decision-making, income inequality) are not challenged then they can become entrenched in projects, (re)producing or exacerbating existing inequalities.



Local socioeconomic development



CRE projects can generate local socioeconomic benefits, con-

tributing to locally-added economic value, or even to regional economies through revenues, job creation and income diversifi-cation (e.g. Okkonen and Lehtonen 2016; Sperling 2017; see Berka and Creamer 2018). While job creation, income generation and

revenue diversification from project development and operati-on are noteworthy benefits, the primary factor determining so-cioeconomic regeneration is where long-term project revenues

are allocated (Berka and Creamer 2018). For example, the most substantial changes residents saw from a 900kW community wind project in a Scottish island were either direct or indirect

effects of project revenues (van der Waal 2020). Revenues were mainly used to finance some much-desired additional transport services for the island, with many beneficial flow-on effects (ibid). In Indonesia, earnings from two micro or small hydro coope-

ratives 4 were invested in new income-generating or productive activities by villagers, such as a small enterprise manufacturing bags (Guerreiro and Botetzagias 2018). Berka and Creamer (2018)

find that investing project revenues in the local community and on socioeconomic regeneration is one of the most ‘substantial’



4 One coop is hybrid, involving wind and solar as well.



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local impacts of CRE. Therefore, they contend that “collective

funding pools and negotiation processes around their distribu-tion [revenues] towards private versus public goods play a cruci-al role in determining transformative local impacts of CRE” (p.

3400). Lastly, procuring materials and labor and sourcing capital locally also allow projects to contribute to local socioeconomic regeneration. Local procurement, however, depends on the exis-

tence of local supply of labor and services and materials, as well as on scale – for example, smaller projects have been found to source locally more than larger ones (ibid). Entwistle et al. (2014) demonstrate that the cooperative share model using local capital

is a better option for socioeconomic regeneration, reducing the overall cost of borrowing, directly providing income for mem-bers, and increasing net earnings and total local GDP impacts.

However, focusing on ‘local’ socioeconomic development risks assuming a homogeneity within local communities, downplaying inequalities within them and neglecting relevant

procedural and distributive justice considerations. It also neg-lects the disadvantaged communities implicated in unequal power relations and which have limited financial, social and per-sonal resources to pursue CRE (echoing Catney et al. 2014 and

Mohan and Stokke 2000). This means risking the creation of new regional or sub-regional inequalities when more advantaged re-gions and communities engaging in CRE capture the most value

from surrounding disadvantaged ones (e.g. through subsidizati-on) (Johnson and Hall 2014).

Energy transition is a geographical process with geographi-

es of connection, dependency and control (Bridge et al. 2013). This means that energy transition in one place is influenced by more than national politics and local contexts: the relationships between countries, the wider political economy of states, transna-

tional firms, international agreements and so on (ibid; see Power et al. 2016 for Mozambique and South Africa). In other words, energy transition governance involves complex relations betwe-

en multiple actors operating across spaces (Power et al. 2016). It also involves geographical connections and interactions betwe-



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en places and new patterns of socio-spatial activity (Bridge et al.

2013). Energy transitions are uneven socio-spatial processes (Cal-vert 2016) with uneven social consequences for people and places (Newell and Mulvaney 2013). Socioeconomic benefits from CRE

for (some in) one place might entail injustices for (others in) other places. CRE localism, therefore, risks seeing the ‘local’ as isolated from other scales, places, wider interrelations, broader economic

and political structures and associated impacts in other places (see also Catney et al. 2014). It neglects the production of geographi-cal differences for economic growth and development, as well as the ‘new geographies of winners and losers’ and ‘new patterns of

uneven development’ created (echoing Bridge et al. 2013).



Capacity building



Active participation in CRE can lead to new knowledge and skills emerging on numerous issues, such as project management and community engagement, and can ‘harness’ pre-existing untapped

knowledge, skills and capacities (e.g. Martiskainen 2017; Walker et al. 2010). Capacity building requires some relevant pre-existing knowledge and skills (e.g. technical, legal). Without them, project

development can be held back, even where CRE is popular (Berka and Creamer 2018). Moreover, usually, project implementation rests on a limited number of individuals leading projects that

have specific knowledge, skills and competencies and new lear-ning may predominantly reflect these people. Meanwhile, limited participation by lower-income and less educated individuals or groups limit possibilities for capacity building.

Capacity building directly relates to ‘social capital’ formula-tion. Social capital reflects “the intrinsic capacity within which individuals and their social relationships can provide the means

for community action capable of achieving shared objectives” (Peters et al. 2010: 7601, quoted in Parkhill et al. 2015: 62). It in-volves inclusion in, and creation of, local social ties and networks

embedded in trust and conceptualizations of a shared identity, shared visions and a common goal. Strong local social networks



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and trust are a prerequisite and a potential outcome of CRE (e.g.

Parkhill et al. 2015; Radtke 2014; Walker et al. 2010). Yet, CRE can adversely affect social capital by dividing communities and eroding social cohesion (e.g. Bere et al. 2015; Walker et al. 2010).

Berka and Creamer (2018: 3408) find that “the obtrusiveness of technology, the unequitable distribution of costs and benefits and the degree of broad and deep engagement in the project

process” determine positive versus adverse impacts on social ca-pital. Moreover, Middlemiss and Parrish (2010) argue that the social capital in CRE initiatives is formed by the community’s

cultural, organizational, infrastructural and personal capacity.5 They examine a Native American industrial-scale, community owned renewable energy initiative in the Northern Greater Pla-ins. They demonstrate that even a predominantly disempowered

community can alter its own overall capacity for empowerment and change by creatively drawing on its existing capacities.

Intermediaries play a positive role in capacity building

(e.g. Guerreiro and Botetzagias 2018; Ruggiero et al. 2014). For example, in the aforementioned Indonesian case, Guerreiro and Botetzagias (2018) emphasize the positive role an intermediary

organization played most notably in ensuring that the coopera-tives would be financially sustained without external assistance. This was achieved by building on and strengthening existing community capacity to generate income. This ensured villagers

would have the economic means to buy RE from the cooperatives. They argue that in a developing country, and especially under a hostile policy environment for CRE, intermediaries as meso-level

actors are “a make-or-break pre-condition” for successfully im-plementing projects, namely for capacity building. Martiskainen (2017) finds that intermediaries pass on new knowledge to other CRE groups and gain knowledge and skills themselves.



5 Cultural capacity is the legitimacy of sustainability objectives in view of the community’s

history and values, while organizational capacity is “the values of the organisations active in a

community and resulting support available for community action” (Middlemiss and Parrish

2010: 7561). Infrastructural capacity is “the provision of facilities for sustainable living/

initiatives by government, business and community groups”, while personal capacity the

resources for community sustainability members have, such as knowledge and skills (p. 7561).



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Ecocultural sustainability



Aside from avoiding emissions at the points of energy and heat generation, CRE does not necessarily entail progressive ecological outcomes. Research indicates mixed success with better climate change awareness and energy consumption practices amongst CRE

participants: in some cases no change was observed, while in others positive changes (for core members) were noted. For instance, six CRE projects in England and Wales did not affect participants’

awareness of climate change, but rather were firmly grounded in local economic motives (e.g. income for local farmers, village hall refurbishment) (Walker et al. 2010). Rommel et al. (2018: 1751) ar-

gue that CRE projects in Germany are dominated by “technophile eco modernists”, with only few members being critical of techno-logy and excessive energy consumption. They find “little evidence of a general change in attitudes towards technology, consumption,

or equity” emanating from CRE initiatives, most of which rely on the market economy and are in danger of being ‘consumed’ by the dominant capitalist politico-economic system (p. 1746).

Rogers et al. (2012) explore a community biomass heating project in England, initially not motivated by environmental con-cerns or climate change. These concerns were later picked up by

the project’s directors. They find shifting views on energy use and willingness to pursue or engage in other RE projects by project directors as a ‘spill over effect.’ They also find that individuals involved in, or in contact with, the project became familiarized

with this technology, influencing uptake decisions. However, the project’s potential to alter residents’ energy practices towards more sustainable lifestyles “may be relatively weak”, probably due

to the strong focus on local socioeconomic objectives (p. 245). In a survey including 25 individuals from two community hydro-power projects in Wales, admittedly subject to self-selection bias,

67% argued they gained greater awareness of climate change, 65% argued they reduced their energy consumption and 48% claimed they installed new energy efficiency measures (Bere et al. 2015). In one project, 26 participating households reduced their energy

use by 13.4% over a two-week period, but this occurred after



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energy reduction work using smart meters and energy saving

advice was provided by the relevant Trust and government.

Beyond other contextual factors, the key reasons for varied outcomes are initial or post-hoc motivations, as well as underlying

conceptualizations of technology and conviction (or lack of) to bro-ader change. When motivations exclude concerns about climate change and inducing broader change in society, and rest solely on

economic and social benefits for individuals and local communiti-es, then CRE is not likely to have progressive ecological outcomes, such as less consumptive lifestyles (see also Berka and Creamer 2018). Also, as the German case suggests, when technology is per-

ceived as the ‘savior’ from climate change, then too CRE is not likely to generate progressive ecological outcomes (Rommel et al. 2018). In these cases, CRE could even produce ‘rebound’ effects, such as

increased energy-intensive behavior. Moreover, Berka and Creamer (2018: 3414) find that “where CRE was driven by (financial and/or environmental) objectives that do not extend beyond renewable

energy projects, it led to business models designed primarily to generate returns for membership-based investors.” They conclu-de that self-consumption projects involving high levels of active user engagement are more likely to generate positive impacts on

environmental behavior (ibid). Projects with explicit environmen-tal mission statements that use revenues to fund, or complement, community-wide action for nourishing lifestyle changes because

of climate change are also more likely to have positive impacts on environmental behavior (Berka and Creamer 2018).

Lastly, how (far) CRE contributes to cultural sustainability

is under-researched. In a noteworthy case, however, four com-munity-owned wind projects in Wales and Scotland contributed most notably to language retention and revitalization (of Welsh

and Scottish Gaelic) (Haf and Parkill 2017). Project revenues were used to finance, inter alia, cultural activities, such as local language courses, traditional music events and community services. Also, the aforementioned Maori case suggests that CRE can counter the

overtaking of Indigenous groups by the current neocolonial order and assert their unique ontologies in energy transitions.



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From local to global considerations



Various forms of corporate, non-community RE development have been found to involve top-down land grabs and dispossessi-ons (e.g. Baka 2017; Brannstrom et al. 2017; Dunlap 2019; Rignall 2016; Siamanta 2019), sometimes including extra-legal practices

and deception (e.g. Siamanta and Dunlap 2019). Researchers have found notable impacts on local livelihoods (e.g. direct loss, denial of access to land and resources previously used) and the further

marginalization, or impoverishment, of already disenfranchised groups and communities (e.g. indigenous populations, ethnic mi-norities, fishermen) (e.g. Brannstrom et al. 2017; Dunlap 2019;

Goraeyb et al. 2018; Lawrence 2014; Rignall 2016; Yenetti et al. 2016). High intensity, and in some cases violent conflicts between companies or the state and local communities, and within com-munities have been observed (e.g. Brannstrom et al. 2017; Dun-

lap 2019). Rural gentrification (Dunlap 2019), financial resources grabbing (Siamanta 2017, 2019) and adverse impacts on culture (e.g. Dunlap 2019) are also noted. The latter emanate from alte-

ring and/or denying long-established sociocultural practices and human-more than-human relations.

Some scientists argue that a major shift to centralized RE

development facilitates capitalism’s continued reproduction and expansion (McCarthy 2015; Siamanta and Dunlap 2019). More-over, some projects explicitly support industrial and high emissi-ons practices elsewhere (e.g. Dunlap 2019), while those involving

carbon offsetting and trading indirectly support higher release of greenhouse gasses.6 Local economic benefits from a commercial project are often deficient (e.g. job creation, community payments,

development projects) and less than for true CRE projects (Berka and Creamer 2018). These benefits can be tokenistic, insufficient and problematic (e.g. Lawrence 2014; Rignall 2016). These adverse

dynamics and outcomes can be at least minimized through CRE, while it can provide some actual local benefits as discussed above. However, ‘avoiding’ poor outcomes depends and the extent to which this is even possible depends on the specific project configuration



6 On carbon markets, see for example Bachram (2004).

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Zoi Christina Siamanta



and power relations involved. While environmental degradation

at the points of utility-scale RE generation can also be avoided by small CRE projects, for example through the considerate siting of solar panel arrays, not all projects can be socially and environmen-

tally transformative. In general, the literature suggests CRE is closer to socially just renewable energy development for climate change mitigation than non-community, large scale or commercial RE.

There are several crucial issues to consider here. CRE may serve as a ‘bridge’ between ‘roll-back’ neoliberalism, where local commu-nities are expected to mitigate climate change through community actions, and ‘roll-out’ neoliberalism, where they undertake energy

projects under neoliberal terms (following (Peck and Tickell 2002; Taylor Aiken et al. 2017). The latter includes the promotion of ‘per-sonal responsibility’ and ‘self-care’, as well as the formation of ‘self-

-sufficient’, ‘self-governing’, ‘rational economic’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ individuals and communities. Castree (2010) identifies these appro-aches as a principal characteristic of the neoliberalization project.

Subject formation in line with neoliberal environmental governance can reach as far as community renewable energy projects, but also drive individual production of renewable energy (Siamanta 2017).

Moreover, CRE and especially projects feeding energy into state or private utility electricity networks are not disconnected

from the broader political economy, commodification, neolibe-ralization processes, and the wider functioning of the capitalist system. There can be the privatization of electricity networks

and energy companies, the deregulation of environmental stan-dards for RE investments, and ‘partnerships’ formed between community and private actors. Further, paraphrasing Burke and Stephens (2018: 85), RE technologies are embedded within

a wider industrial system of fossil fuel and natural resource extraction that supports their manufacturing and that generates huge inequalities. For instance, Sovacool et al. (2020) find that

cobalt (used in wind turbines) mining in Katanga Province, DR Congo and e-waste handling in Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana reinforce ethnic and gender inequalities, lowering environmen-tal health through toxic pollution and both depend heavily on



84

child labor, with some children worked to death and drowned.7

Renewable and conventional energy production currently ser-ves the dominant growth-oriented development model and its supporting culture, although sometimes unknowingly. CRE may

be intensifying existing patterns of human exploitation and envi-ronmental degradation or destruction regarding, amongst others: raw material extraction for technology development; techno-logy manufacturing; building infrastructure; e-waste handling;

and broader industrial production. It also risks replicating the dominant logics shaping and narratives accompanying natural resource extraction and commodification of energy and more-

-than-human nature. CRE, thus, can reinforce neoliberal envi-ronmental governance and the broader ideational, discursive and material workings of the capitalist industrial system.

Any CRE project that does not place these issues at its cen-ter (e.g. industrial development, increasing energy consumption,

exploitive relations and injustices), or that does not seek to, at least partially, address them, cannot be considered as producing ‘Re-newable’ Energy, as a sustainable and equitable response to climate

change. How can we begin to address these issues under the cur-rent model of ‘infinite growth’ and the growing dominance of ‘gre-en capitalism’ that equates ‘development’ with capitalist expansion, nourishing market-based relationships? How could CRE contribute

to alternative sustainabilities? Before dealing with these questions, I first discuss affirmative world-making approaches and research that can aid in sketching a different approach for CRE.



Diverse economies, community economies

and more-than-critical political ecology



Gibson-Graham (2006, 2011) challenge the traditional definiti-ons of ‘the economy’ and dominant understandings of capitalism

as a monolithic system. They re-conceptualize the economy as diverse, namely as:



7 Both cases concern RE technology: cobalt used in wind turbines, and turbine blade and

solar panel waste.



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Zoi Christina Siamanta



…a landscape of radical heterogeneity populated by an array of

capitalist and noncapitalist enterprises, market, non-market and

alternative market transactions, paid, unpaid and alternatively

compensated labor, and various forms of finance and property

(Gibson-Graham 2011: 2).



They specifically distinguish between mainstream capitalist,

alternative-capitalist and non-capitalist forms of these five afo-rementioned interrelated dynamics (labor, enterprise, transacti-ons, property and finance) (Gibson-Graham 2006, 2011). Figure 1 depicts the landscape of ‘the diverse economy.’

Gibson-Graham (2006, 2011) argue that capitalist practices and relations are only ‘the tip of the iceberg’, with a whole range of numerous hidden economies lying below the water’s surface.8

However, diverse non-capitalist and alternative-capitalist econo-mic practices and relations are mostly unrecognized and ‘unvalu-ed.’ They have become non-credible alternatives, receding in the

background of mainstream economic thinking: they are invisi-ble due to discursive erasure by capitalocentric perceptions and approaches (Gibson Graham 2006, 2008, 2011).9 Moreover, “eco-nomic dynamics are overdetermined” (Gibson-Graham 2006: 72)

and, thus, each aspect of the diverse economy in Figure 1 – social relations, institutions and subjectivities are formed through the intimate interrelationship between, and the effects of, all ele-

ments together and not because of one single determinant factor or inescapable structuring logic (Burke and Shear 2014a). There-fore, “the relationship between activities in places cannot be pre-

dicted but is open to politics and other contingencies” (Gibson--Graham 2006: 72). And, “relationships, practices and initiatives all become sites of possibility”, while “capitalist sites and proces-ses become open to transformation and engagement” (Burke and

Shear 2014a: 132). Yet, alternative-capitalist and non-capitalist



8 They recognize diversity within capitalist activity.

9 The ‘hegemony’ of the capitalist system and neoliberalism is sometimes overemphasized,

affording less ‘power’ to existing and possible non-capitalist or neoliberal conceptualizations

and alternative relations and practices. However, I concur with Fletcher (2019) that this

hegemony exists materially and discursively. This implies that other economies exist within

this framework.



86

e M s l nd lala e y ing E T ve on y-nc s nc it ee nd s IV ti nl on ina na KEfr qu EAt- u unit ti f fi le on AT era AR TR t e ti mes ET ET tu o-ily s ks dit nc RN ed-M ea er NS oop an re om sti as icr N am onaan w AI ARK TE ARK C C C M S F D Int Fina M M Al M • B • • b in • NO • • • • lo



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)



ty VE d an P l cl ge l S ee I y y ( na e ce ua rc lt us ES er ona TI ar y) ct ti oupa un no E edg rt CC ph E-ma s m s m s lle ge A rna s n s er AT RNA wl AT te et d peer sto te ust dl N te er op IV TE IV ta ss om no an in ro tmos peut PE at S Cu C ln A In O O Pr PR AL PR • a • l • tr • k ( p O • • w ••



D re ou r



r IV l l ur rk r is pl cabo y (Gib or w wo ee ov AT ro d la em D se nt pr in k f E RN f- ou E P ed fa ab ni elio oy AI ng son-Graham 2010: 228).



Lab G cip lu f- ve-k or el PAI ou ella TE N conom S Re In W H Vo S S WA Al • • • • U • • • •e e



e ne ent le t AL ve rs e he divers m ST TI ST w ib ib fi IT ti to is is LI LI ro unit l: T -o on lly AP er ie pr era pr ons ons m TA VE d IST s hi y le al ps ly



er RNA TA te ir ia -p e rk pr er da-C PI TE PI ta nv on N oop ole ro om esp esp nt eulav ure 1 S E Soc N Wo S C F S Ent CA AL CA • • r • r • NO • c • p • e • •Fig



forms of the diverse economy (Figure 1) are not necessarily less exploitative or more liberating than capitalism (Burke and Shear 2014a; Samers 2005). Samers (2005) argues that when distingu-

ishing between exploitative and progressive forms of the diverse economy, it is important to explore the relationships and proces-ses of production, and the employment conditions in different forms of diverse economies.



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Zoi Christina Siamanta



This denaturalization of capitalism and the anti-essentialist

re-reading of economic practices enables the ontological con-ception of ‘community economies’ (Gibson-Graham 2006, 2011). Community economies are “economic spaces or networks in whi-

ch relations of interdependence are democratically negotiated by participating individuals and organizations” (Gibson-Graham 2008: 28). ‘Community’ in this approach



…implies the need to re-socialise economic relations by adopting

an ethical approach and recognising the interdependence οf su-

bjects and economic practices and going beyond an individuali-

sed performance without refusing or eliminating any singularity

and individuality. (Gritzas and Kavoulatos 2016: 923)



(Νew) non- and alternative-capitalist economic knowledges, values, practices, relations and identities are, and can be, enacted

in more ethical politico-economic decision-making by subjects. These, then, provide the foundation for ‘a post-capitalist politics’ (Gibson-Graham 2006), whereby community is a site of beco-

ming, and community economies are the grounds for collective ethical economic decision-making through which new worlds are, and can be, constructed.

Acknowledging climate change, Gibson-Graham, along with others, urge us to rethink how to be humans. And to filter eco-nomic practices through an ethics of care for, and affective rela-tionships with, humans and the more-than-human world (Gib-

son-Graham and Roelvink 2010; Gibson-Graham 2011; Gibson Graham et al. 2013). Specifically, Gibson-Graham and Roelvink (2010: 320) call for an economic ethics that nurtures the “bein-

g-in-common” of “all being(s), human and non-human, animate and inanimate, processual and fluid as well as categorical and definite in conception.” This involves humans being transformed

by the world they dwell in as part of “learning to be affected” (ibid: 322; see Latour 2004).10 Learning to be affected as an et-hical practice entails “developing an awareness of, and in the process being transformed by, co-existence.” It is the basis for



10 ‘Learning to be affected’ implies an ongoing learning process.



88

an economy for a more-than-human world (Gibson-Graham and

Roelvink 2010: 325).

While these contributions are important for an economic ethics for a more-than-human world, in them environmental acti-

on tends to be considered “as a predominantly positive counter-balance to destructive capitalist processes” (Fletcher 2019: 12). This is despite evidence that environmental governance is also

diverse, and includes seemingly progressive policies which (can) involve regressive socio-ecological outcomes. An example of the latter is the utility-scale renewable energy production discussed

above. Lastly, the community economies approach includes six ethical coordinates around which community economies are be-ing, and might be, built:



1. Survival: What do we really need to survive well? How do we

balance our own survival needs and well-being with the well-

being of others and the planet?

2. Commons: What do we share with human and non-human

others? How do we maintain, replenish, and grow this natural and

cultural commons?

3. Consumption: What do we really need to consume? How do we

consume sustainably and justly?

4. Transactions: What is the range of ways we secure things we

cannot produce ourselves? How do we conduct ethical encounters

with human and non-human others in these transactions?

5. Investment: What do we do with stored wealth? How do we

invest this wealth so that future generations may live well?

6. Surplus: What is left after our survival needs have been met? How

do we distribute this surplus to enrich social and environmental

health? (Community Economies 2019: np).



Some work brings ecological issues more centrally into the diverse/community economies approach, most notably from a po-litical ecology approach (Fletcher 2019; Burke and Shear 2014b).

Fletcher (2019) sets out an analytical framework of ‘diverse eco-logies’ that maps diversity in environmental governance: with



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diverse forms of environmental governance (strategies and pra-

ctices) and their specific articulations (Figure 2). The integra-tion of different governmentalities (e.g. neoliberal, communal) expressed in diverse economic arrangements is notable. Diverse

subjectivities (can) emerge in their wake.11

Burke and Shear (2014b) edited a Special Section in the Jo-urnal of Political Ecology that advanced a non-capitalocentric po-

litical ecology for politicizing, reimagining and reconstructing nature-society relations. It explores community interventions, cases from the Community Economies Collectives, grassroots

groups, and new collectivities in process and new openings cre-ated. The case studies are embedded in, or involve, non-capitalist values, practices, relations and politics, testifying to diverse ‘non-capitalist political ecologies.’ They examine how (new) ethics,

values and knowledge are formed or enacted, reconceptualizing value and politics and facilitating new political possibilities. John-son (2014) demonstrates how Inuit activists in the Canadian Ar-

ctic influenced international deliberations and negotiations for banning Persistent Organic Pollutants through mobilizing affect and reciprocity, and gifting a carving of the Inuit mother and child. She shows that these non-capitalist practices and politi-

cs are grounded in the Inuit’s particular ethical affective relati-ons with humans, more-than-humans and the land, which are created through non-capitalist subsistence practices. Burke and

Shear conclude that semi-autonomous local organization better supports active participation in ethical deliberation and collecti-ve action (2014a: 139). Another finding is the “cascading effect of

politicization”: values constructed also involve the re-scaling of ethical consideration and, thus, local political action may cascade into other forms of political action in other realms. At the same time, “economic practices and logics emerging from the local can

jump scales” (Burke and Shear 2014b: 139).

Meanwhile, other affirmative approaches are deployed in po-litical ecology research, building on, inter alia, affect, care, animi-



11 Governmentality denotes ‘the arts of government’; how power is exercised in social relations

to formulate the ‘conduct’ of individuals and govern relations (Foucault, 2008[1978-1979]).



90

sm and pluriversality (e.g. Collard et al. 2015; Singh 2013; Sullivan

2013, 2019). For instance, Singh (2013, 2015) explores community forest conservation in Odisha, India. She demonstrates how affecti-ve reciprocal relations with forests and related intimate practices of

care and nurturing led to non capitalist ways of valuing more-than-human nature and, thus, to possibilities for challenging market-ba-sed conservation. Singh (2018) discusses ‘affective political ecology’,

describing how focusing on affects affords a stronger appreciation of the interconnectedness of all beings. It enables us to (re)think becoming together with Earth others, other-than capitalist human subjectivities, and ecopolitics. Ecopolitics is reframed as embed-

ded in care for the world from “a lived-in or kincentric ecological perspective” (p. 3). In various contributions, Sullivan provides an ontological avenue for more egalitarian and ‘vivacious’ socio-eco-

logical sustainabilities based on animism (e.g. Sullivan 2013; 2019). Animism is an orientation “to enliven both nonhuman natures and understandings of what it means to be human in intimate, moving

and maintaining improvisations with other-than-human worlds” (Sullivan 2013: 55). She sees existing animist ontologies as



…among the social forces that can be mobilised and affirmed to-

day in (re)configuring, (re)com posing (re)embodying culturena-

ture relationships that are enlivened in support of the flourishing

of life’s diversity. (Sullivan 2013: 60)



Notable is the parallel extension of Foucault’s ‘care of the self’ as care for humans and more-than humans and life itself, for an

egalitarian and abundant ethics of life (Sullivan 2019). Collard et al. (2015: 322) call for new socio-ecological futures with “more diverse and autonomous forms of life and ways of living together”,

or else for “multispecies abundance.” They offer political strategies for this, including acting in pluriversal rather than universal ways. This means embracing and enacting ontological multiplicity, for

example by reinforcing practices and performances that articulate different worlds than those of imperial capitalism and colonialism.

These various approaches provide an affirmative lens thro-ugh which to envisage, amongst others, the post-capitalist forms



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Zoi Christina Siamanta



s te al id ve et ket d ti rk un npaar ai m t s p rna ma ket m ta m ss e U lis ar r S ve e on te on e ag t ve t ve ta ti tske ty cce iv is cti Al ti ti is ce e Co pi e M et N pr alar al ti er r W ct sa at n a rna rna ca nc ket rnam rk er ac op iv bo lle an pit pe te te pit ar on teon Pr Pr Pr O La Al Co Tr M ma Ent Ca Al ca N Fina AlN



es o iv y ati el ef lit om t s t n lit del ti si on io ua lit y y S es vi ce y e D ly bi ti or e r bi it con at er si f rit ti it lit iv t-si alve en lin na pi ec f- ic on in y er y re us e d s

bj di or o e fi int on ct iv a peti cle on ma ip ific S cti th lf-ne st sp m hi lle nvfe re be or sc at om ill sp Su O au N di gr H Se Be co Re Co Ve w Co re Co AfCa



s ion n es s g d s g it l es s cin inan on m d in m ri L g ic ua et ti e e er s p oo it egi ne estin rk uc pr ir io nd f n g nc typ ry ab n r w ivif e p io io int e a n-ent ry to us T Sp on ty at G r o at on illa t ma bl ta ie at rs io sl ti id es a ea la em es ess m er er ketin ve ree kerm lic gi ec un xa bs nc uc ada ve as re gu lig ac ss op ar or opfo ir Po Le Ta Su Fe Ed M Sur D Tr Re Co ag Re Vol Re dec sp po Com pr W core



s n n e/ n y n e it ioic io hs al ng her 2019: 15 on D es on at at ct io n ry kitc tio n xi ec on on ent el ts ra l e io at uti ati la ip ng al to on ti tio ific ro m o ib ati ev ex on ma l p na at le iz liz ti gu sh t la t ti tr od un oni pa n- io al t p ng m re edg ra la e r al ua liz cip is re en ed it ci m uc m ios. (Fle m atiz gu m ki ketin ke su it in wl ia ti in nt gu cl lf- pe tiz iv m cr ir m od m ds ad or ar re ar an ea ivgie Pr Ce Re Re N Se Ci Pr M re Co M Fl M D Ap sa Sp Tr kno Soc Co pr Co Par de

f colo



phy y - l e e ca er o hi ) nd rd et ry sm -a ) s) e o nt e ( ali al to on ve t . Divers ig and l) er th lin ti un pa ) lis so re nti ro m ci nc lib h ( gs ia cip ti ilo ve ce omm nt ju ut in m is eo ocure 2: Ph So (c co D in N (in Tr th Co (s ParFig



CRE can take (forms of enterprise, surplus distribution, subjecti-vities, etc.), the re scaling of ethical consideration12 and ethico-

-political decision-making for CRE practices.



12 This includes, for example, ethical consideration on energy consumption, environmental

destruction at the places of resource extraction and labor conditions in technology

manufacturing.



92

Post-capitalist RE development: Community

Renewable Energy Ecologies (CREE)



Ethico-political orientations



An alternative approach to (C)RE development first requires ret-hinking ‘nature’ and the world. It requires acknowledging ‘nature’ and society as belonging to the same settlement (the oikos). This

means abandoning nature/society distinctions, or subject/object, and the Western consensual vision of ‘nature’ as external, singu-lar, an object, an ecosystem service provider and a commodity.

It means recognizing ‘a more than-human world’ (Abram 1996) defined by agency, heterogeneity, complexity and pluralism. It further implies acknowledging that we are entangled with more--than-humans in numerous flows and connections and relations.

Our co-evolution involves humans, more-than-humans, cultures, things, bodies and so on coming together in networks, as well as nature and society evolving together (see inter alia Braun 2006;

Swyngedouw 2011; Whatmore 2002, 2006).13 Recognizing a com-mon more-than-human world and evolution affirms the kinship between humans and more-than-humans: that we are kin with

and not really different from ‘earth others.’

This ontological reframing unveils the interconnectedness of entities, landscapes, processes, flows and outcomes (i.e. of life it-self). It enables us to recognize the various socio-ecological impa-

cts of climate change and the broader multispecies violence and injustices engendered by industrial development and (neoliberal) capitalism. More than this, we are urged by this form of ‘refra-

ming’ to rethink how to be humans. The interconnectedness of relationships, processes and outcomes of renewable energy gene-ration within and across locales, over time and across the value

chain must be recognized. There are impacts on humans and more-than-humans and related injustices upstream, downstream and at the intermediary stages of the RE supply chain: from the places of resource extraction, through manufacturing, to energy



13 Scholars call these networks ‘socionatural assemblages’, or ‘rhizomatic networks’, and our

common evolution ‘a socionatural evolution.’



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production. Rethinking ‘nature’ and the world in this way, thus,

invites ethical encounters in renewable energy production across the value chain and (time)scales for ‘becoming-in-common.’

As Burke and Stephens (2017) suggest, conceptualizing

energy and governing energy systems as commons is pivotal for energy democracy. A radical approach sees RE as a common good, rather than a commodity. Governance under commons-

based peer production (CBPP)14 reflects a distributed network of individuals freely participating and collaborating for producing shared value according to their rules, norms and needs without the driving factor of profit (Giotitsas et al. 2020). ‘Commonificati-

on’ rather than commodification of RE not only means changing ownership structures, but also creating common value systems and rules (echoing Giotitsas et al. 2020, Burke and Stephens 2017).

A relational process of negotiating use, access, care, benefit and responsibility would create this common value (echoing Gibson Graham et al. 2013). Commoning involves more-than-humans.

‘Becoming-in-common’ means a social system characterized by a relational way of being, doing and benefiting. In this light:



Working towards “a commons-creating economy” (Helfrich 2013)

also means working towards the (re)constitution of relational

world, ones in which the economy is re-embedded in society and

nature…; it means the individual integrated within a community,

the human within the nonhuman, and knowledge within the ine-

vitable contiguity of knowing, being and doing. (Escobar 2015: np).



Ethico-political encounters of this type, and cultivating the an-ti-capitalist self, means other-than capitalist subjectivities and a

different kind of person (an ethico-political subject, echoing Gib-son-Graham 2006). An ethico-political individual emerges from embodied, reciprocal and affective practices and relations with

humans and the more-than-human world, someone who cares for other humans and more-than-humans, and life itself as part of caring for the self (echoing Sullivan 2019) and encourages ethico-

-political decisions for ‘multispecies abundance’ (echoing Collard



14 On CBPP, see Bauwens et al. (2019).



94

et al. 2015). This individual promotes “an other power of life that

strives toward an alternative existence” (Hardt and Negri 2009: 57). It is a communal subject that nurtures the ‘becoming-in-common’ and what Fletcher (2019) calls a ‘liberatory’ or ‘communal gover-

nmentality.’ Namely, exercising power based on collective respon-sibility, care and affective relations for liberatory ways of becoming together with humans and earth others (see also Figure 2).15

Renewable energy production under CREE can proceed accor-ding to collective ethico-political deliberation and decision-making that: 1) acknowledges interrelationships; 2) goes beyond individual and local collective benefits; 3) embodies care for and affective rela-

tions between humans and between humans and earth others; and 4) is oriented towards a commons-based economy for more ‘thri-ving’ and egalitarian sustainabilities. The six ethical coordinates of

the community economies approach above are also important, and those coordinates regarding energy production (Table 1).

Collective ethico-political decision-making under CREE,

then, reflects a post-capitalist politics –an oikopolitics– em-bodying care for, and affective relations with, humans and more-than-humans from a ‘kincentric’ ontological perspective (echoing Singh 2018). Such an oikopolitics is oriented towards

more ‘vivacious’ and liberatory ways of living (Collard et al. 2015). Aside from responding to the climate and ecological crisis and transforming the workings of capitalism, it is a progressive com-

position and performance of our common world (echoing Latour 2004) and so begs “constant negotiation with human and ‘earth others’” (Community Economies 2019: np).

To summarize, Community Renewable Energy Economies recognize and support the diversity and autonomy of life and its collective constitution based on cooperation, solidarity, egalita-rianism and kinship (Table 1). None of this suggests imposing

particular systems of knowledge, values, ethics and politics upon local communities. Rather, we need a recognition of the kinship and intimate relations between humans and more-than-humans.

Further, CREE reflect what already exists but is ‘hidden’: socio-



15 Power also has a liberatory dimension (see Fletcher 2019)



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Zoi Christina Siamanta



-ecologies that reject the nature/society binary and embody re-

lational ontologies based on affect and perceptions of ‘sacred’ or animate more-than-human nature. Relational ontologies are evidenced by a vast array of anthropological work (e.g. Johnson

2014; Sullivan 2010; Viveiros de Castro 2004). They are also ar-ticulated in cases of CRE (i.e. the Maori case above) and of local opposition to non-community renewable energy (Dunlap 2019).

Lastly, as Singh (2018: 4) elucidates:



While affective relations and life’s generative capacity are object-

-targets of disciplining and capital accumulation, there is always

an ‘excess’ that escapes capital’s grasp (Hardt and Negri 2004; An-

derson 2010). This ‘excess’, or what Massumi (2002) terms the ‘au-

tonomy’ of affect, opens up possibilities for new modes of being…



Ethico-political considerations for building CREE



I now address how CREE can be formed according to these ori-

entations and coordinates. I focus on the key constitutive ele-ments for RE projects, such as enterprise, labor, technology and financing, and show how specific choices for these can (better)

facilitate RE development for more ‘thriving’ and egalitarian sustainabilities.



Projects for abundant and egalitarian futures



Small RE prosumption projects are most in line with these ethi-co-political orientations. They entail smaller interventions, less RE technology, less resource use, and can lead to ethical pra-ctices discussed above. Meanwhile, medium-scale RE projects,

involving prosumption and sale of surplus energy, can provide revenues that can be allocated in supporting other worthwhile community economies or practices. These sales are not profit-

-oriented. They prioritize benefits for all rather than for the few.

Enterprise, land and labor: beyond mainstream market lo-gics Cooperatives are a better option for CREE than other for-

ms of enterprise, as they are collectively owned and managed by their members and include equal voting rights, notwithstanding



96

the shares each member holds. Thus, they are more egalitarian,

better enabling collective deliberation and decision-making.

Different types of labor can be involved. Cooperative mem-bers can work for self-provisioning (i.e. for providing oneself with

energy to consume and additionally individual income for living well). They can also carry out caring labor (i.e. work for individual and collective well-being). Expert labor by non-members may be

brought in, for example to install RE infrastructure. This offers opportunities for local individuals. It may be compensated in non-monetary ways, through exchange of services and products, or volunteering. There may not be conventional job creation and

wages, but caring and working collaboratively to create common value are recognized. Transparent and fair land ownership ar-rangements are also key for socially just CREE. Communal or

community-owned and private land provided for a power instal-lation can be in the form of an energy share in a commons-based economy. The cooperative can manage the land under collective

responsibility and care for the benefit of all involved. Such an alternative economic logic would reduce dependency on mone-tary exchange, and foster a relational process where benefit, use,

access, care and responsibility are negotiated.



Infrastructure, mechanisms and technology for commoning RE



A microgrid comprises small energy generation units within a defined boundary. It operates autonomously, and can be installed

in remote areas at significantly lower cost, compared to making connection to central power (see Giotitsas et al. 2015).16An auto-nomous microgrid collectively owned and managed by a coope-

rative is a better option than a long-term connection to a central grid under so-called net-metering, as typically seen in RE prosu-mption projects. A microgrid can facilitate commons-based RE production, reducing reliance on higher-order systems. Collecti-

ve decision-making by the cooperative’s members can determine the RE share each member will get. Excess RE not consumed can



16 Giotitsas et al. (2015) suggest microgrids, a common RE pool and open technology in peer-

to-peer (P2P) modes.



97

Type Category Coordinates/Examples Zoi Christina Siamanta

Survival What do we really need to survive well? How do we balance on our

survival needs and well-being with the well-being of others and the planet?

Commons What do we share with human and non-human others? How do we

maintain, replenish, and growth this natural and cultural commons?

Consumption What do we really need to consume? How do we consume

Community sustainably and justly?

economies Transactions How do we secure the things we cannot produce ourselves? How do

we conduct ethical encounters with human and non-human others in these transactions?

Investment What do we do with stored wealth? How do we invest this wealth

for future generations to live well?

Surplus What is left after our survival needs have been met? How do we

distribute this surplus to enrich social and environmental health?

Impacts How does our energy consumption and other consumptive practices

that need energy and resources ( e .g . on technology) impact on the climate, humans and earth others?

Examples: Consider impacts on the climate, human health and 'earth others' from conventional energy production . Consider impacts of RE projects on local groups/individuals ( e .g . land grabbing, loss of livelihoods ) . Consider labor realities in manufacturing RE technologies .

Survival/ How much energy, and what quality and quantity of products, Consumption do we really need to consume to live a fulfilled life and flourish

along with human and 'earth others'? Do we need to scale up RE production or to scale down energy consumption?

Example: Consider rethinking specific choices on energy and product consumption for reducing aforementioned impacts .

Commons/ What encounters between humans and between humans and more-

Encounters than-humans are found in CRE within/across places, (time)scales

and the value chain?

Examples: Consider impacts on 'earth others' from natural resource

CREE extraction formanufacturing wind turbines and solar panels ( e .g .

co balt, rare earth minerals, oil) . Consider exploitive/slave labor for resource extraction and e-waste handling . Consider unequal power relations within and in relation to communities engaged in CRE and procedural/distributive justice .

Commoning/ How can we (creatively) produce the energy we (wish to) consume, Transactions/ making these encounters more just and reproducing (our) life' s Investment material and nou-material aspects?What praxes can we engage in

for commoning RE, whilst 'becoming-in-common'?

Examples: Consider small RE prosumption projects for reduced energy consumption and resource extraction, collectively created, shared and managed . Consider more just technologies .

Surplus/ How can our RE producing activities actively support economies Support and ecologies with alternative ethical orientations and influence

collective ethico-political decision-making for other economic activities and in other domains?

Examples: Consider financial support to, or alliances with, other community economies, and informative events on CREE for the wider public .



98 Table 1: Ethical coordinates for CREE.

form a common RE pool within the microgrid and be allocated

where it might be needed amongst members, avoiding wastage. The infrastructure (microgrid and RE generation units) and the RE produced are collectively owned, managed and shared by the

cooperative’s members, creating common value.

If the RE project generates surplus electricity (a cap on which can be defined by the cooperative), or the cooperative allows for

RE sale, then the microgrid can connect and sell RE to the central grid.17A flexible net-metering mechanism allowing revenue gene-ration is the best available option, rather than reduced electricity bills. Feed-in-tariffs (FiTs) and feed-in-premiums (FiPs) are other

options. In the commonly-used ‘auction systems’, cooperatives may get marginalized in favor of centralized producers. The RE produced is collectively owned and shared by the cooperative and

excess RE is collectively managed. Nearby microgrids can form a larger peer-to-peer (P2P) grid operating under the same rules as the microgrids involved, with excess RE from each microgrid

forming a bigger common RE pool managed by the cooperatives. Excess RE can be allocated to microgrids within the P2P grid (Giotitsas et al. 2015) according to collective decision making

that attends to the needs of the communities involved based on care and solidarity, after which any excess can be sold. Collapse of one microgrid would not compromise the system (ibid).

A microgrid is part of a more just economy. Collective decisi-

on-making on RE technology is also important. For example, this could mean choosing solar panels manufactured domestically un-der better working and labor conditions than those from the main

Asian suppliers. Technology should be locally sourced, through exchange trading systems if possible. Advancing commons-based peer production means utilizing open source software, open ma-chinery and, where suitable given energy outputs and connection

issues, open RE technologies that can be manufactured locally.18



17 Halton Lune Hydro, a community hydro scheme developed by a housing cooperative in

North West England, is an example. It supplies up to 1,000 MWh of electricity a year. http://

haltonlunehydro.org

18 For details on open machinery see OpenSourceEcology (2020). For open RE technologies

see Raniersolarpanel (2020) and Kostakis et al. (2013).



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Zoi Christina Siamanta



The aim is for CREE to ‘bypass’ as much as possible the main-

stream market and advance alternative socioeconomic paradigms that prioritize common value based on collective responsibility, collaboration and care for humans and ‘earth others.’



Financing and surplus: supporting other performances



As Hinshelwood highlights, when “a community group initiates an idea and leads a project, sourcing funding directly, there is a

greater potential for residents to maintain control of the ideas” (2001: 95, emphasis in the original). In this light, self-financing under cooperatives is a good choice for CREE, as it reduces de-pendency on others, better facilitating inclusive democratic ne-

gotiation and decision-making by members. Crowdfunding plat-forms that support open and commons-oriented projects (e.g. the Goteo platform) can generate funding for energy projects,

together with capital from members. For example, services, ma-terials and infrastructure can be contributed by platform mem-bers. Any innovation (e.g. organizational, technical) can then be

openly shared to the platform (see for example Hidalgo 2015 on Goteo) for use by other communities and for familiarizing other individuals with this post-capitalist economic practice.

Cooperatives are a good option for the sale of surplus renewa-

ble energy. A cooperative is not profit oriented and better enables focusing on more egalitarian and ‘vivacious’ ways of becoming. Net earnings are not divided according to shareholding structure,

but rather pro rata amongst members according to the volume of transactions they have conducted with the enterprise (Bauwens et al. 2016). When part of the net income from sales is allocated as

a return on capital shares, profit distribution is subject to a cap, and cooperatives do not have legal obligations to maximize return to shareholders (Jahanisova et al. 2015). Financial speculation of shares is usually forbidden, discouraging maximization of return

on capital, aiding the cooperative’s long-term existence and initial motivations (ibid). Monetary wealth generated can be shared also with non-members. Namely, earnings can be partly distributed

amongst CREE members under a cap for the reproduction of their



100

lives’ (non) material aspects and partly allocated to existing or

new community economies and/or (new) local economic activities and initiatives. CREE, then, can directly support ontological mul-tiplicity and other transformative practices. Alternatively, some

earnings can be partly allocated to communities across the value chain for creating further common value.



Organization and operation: care, affect and openness



Cooperative governance offers equal voting rights for members, without barriers to enrolling new members (Bauwens et al. 2016). A key factor is the inclusion of less advantaged individuals who can usually join in projects by providing labor instead of capital,

retaining the same right to a share in earnings and renewable energy (see Jahanisova et al. 2015). Alternatively, each (prospective) member can provide a small percentage of additional capital for

collectively enabling these individuals to actively engage in pro-jects on more favorable terms. Moreover, collective responsibility, solidarity and care for others are pivotal for project operation and

for collectively deciding how common (pool) renewable energy is allocated within and to other microgrids (e.g. RE shares). Also, if possible, provisions and agreements with a central grid can be made for selling RE more affordably to poor households outside

the microgrids, also reflecting care for less advantaged individuals.

Making all information on strategy, business, finances and so on open access enables knowledge sharing with, and use by, other

CREE and the wider public. This reflects values of openness and sharing of CBPP and could influence ethico-political decision--making by non-members. Finally, a strategy of replication (i.e.

more smaller cooperatives than one larger) could facilitate stron-ger affective social bonds and interpersonal connections between members and non-members (echoing Hicks and Ison 2011).



Capacity building and alliances: enacting other worlds



Drawing on the different existing capacities within local com-munities can significantly contribute to capacity building and su-ccessful project operation. Further ways to build capacity include



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Zoi Christina Siamanta



building knowledge and bridges between CRE or CREE projects

and existing community economies (for example, members of the Community Economies Collective) for sharing information, experiences and skill development. This is important for less-con-

nected or remote communities. Producing common value in this way can foster broader CREE networks of support and solidarity for post-capitalist futures, and may include collective explorations

of new open software or renewable energy technology. New col-laborations and affective relationships along the RE value chain can bind (distant) communities together. Further, informative and educational events for familiarizing the public with this form of

RE development, as well as on broader issues on energy consu-mption, climate change, industrial development and so on, can foster the re-scaling of ethical considerations by non-participating

individuals. Alliances with community or intermediary organi-zations can help with project implementation and collaborations with communities involved in the RE value chain.

Good capacity building can facilitate the ‘uptake’ of CREE through new alliances. The alliances proposed here are impor-tant for facilitating a broader oikopolitics and global transforma-tions. They require careful examination and explicit attention to

maintaining CREE orientations.



Conclusion



This article has discussed one possibility for alternative sustaina-bilities, reframing the development of renewable energy and for-

ming the notion of CREE. This framework and the notion are not prescriptive, but describe a different focus, ethico-political orien-tation, and particularities. They are open to (re)conceptualization by local knowledge and experience, research, and an ongoing lear-

ning process. Ultimately, the precise configurations of CREE rest on negotiation at multiple levels and social innovation, as CREE reflect social laboratories for new more just, enlivened and ‘abun-

dant’ socio-ecologies. CREE should not be a priori judged as more progressive or less exploitative than other RE production forms.



102

CREE outcomes cannot be assumed nor predicted, as research

shows that practice can diverge widely from theory. Socio-natures are heterogeneous, complex and (often) unpredictable.

The article employed critique and its lessons in forming an alternative affirmative approach for RE development and in

providing specific suggestions, without these taking a secon-dary role. While critique and talk of alternatives to capitalist practices can indeed sometimes reinforce the centrality of ca-pitalism as a reference point, deploying critique productively

is necessary for articulating other worlds beyond capitalism. This means affirming both ‘the hatchet’ and the ‘seed’ of poli-tical ecology and working beyond the sticky binary of critique

and affirmation (Alhojärvi and Sirviö 2018).19 I argue that CREE, as envisioned here, are better aligned with mitigating climate and ecological crises and more ‘thriving’ egalitarian

futures for humans and more-than-humans than conventional approaches to renewable energy.

The alternative framework sketched here echoes calls from within political ecology for finding possibilities amidst devastati-on, and for forming other worlds (e.g. Alhojärvi and Sirviö 2018). The article is only a starting point: not all aspects, interacting

processes, technology issues or prospects for CREE were cove-red here. Transitioning away from capitalist RE development to CREE is not easy. Amongst other things, it requires supporting

individuals and communities who lack the ability to alter the power relations they are embedded in, and strengthening their capacity for pursuing CREE. For example, this means mobilizing

other than-capitalist valuation logics and languages in different arenas. It also means sharing knowledge, skills and (financial) resources with less knowledgeable and affluent groups. Mate-rializing CREE further requires action and struggle to generate

(more) favourable legislative frameworks where they do not exist. This entails building new alliances and capacities between social movements and between various actors for political contestation

targeted at local, regional and central governments. Scientists



19 On the ‘hatchet’ and the ‘seed’ of political ecology, see Robbins (2012).



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can aid in these endeavours and actively support the building

of CREE, through participatory action research for example.20 The latter can be particularly helpful for shifting unequal power relations within and surrounding communities.

This article does not reflect a hopelessly optimistic view, but rather an affirmation that new and more just socio-ecological or-ders can come into being; if the history of social movements and

struggles has taught us anything it is that struggle and collective actions can indeed change the world, little by little.



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Rita Calvário1



Edible Revolutions: Food,



Power, and Postcapitalist



Transformation2



This chapter explores food as both a lens and a strategic site for

social transformation, critically examining the limits of framing strategy through the dichotomy of prefigurative and contentious politics. Drawing on diverse food movements, from food alterna-

tives to food justice and food sovereignty, it argues for a plural, context- sensitive approach that combines grassroots alternati-ves, social mobilisation, state engagement, and structural change.

Central to this is a relational view of power, shaped from above and negotiated and contested from below, with the everyday as a key site of struggle. La Vía Campesina’s movement- and alliance--building experience exemplifies how solidarity and mutual trans-

formation of intersecting identities and scales can counter social fragmentation and contribute to advancing systemic change.



Introduction



This chapter engages with food as an entry point into the conver-sation about systemic change, departing from the premise that

meaningful change in food systems is inseparable from a broader societal shift away from capitalism.

The way in which food production, distribution, and consu-

mption is organised, and reproduced, is profoundly rooted in the



1 Rita Calvário is an integrated researcher at the Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial

Studies at the University of Lisbon.

2 This work was funded by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Foundation for

Science and Technology), through the project 2022.08333.CEECIND.



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capitalist mode of production and its underlying logics of dispos-

session, commodification, and accumulation. Without challen-ging and transforming these dynamics, any food systemtrans-formationtowards more just power relations and socioecologies

will always be incomplete. But food is not only a site of material and cultural inequality and exclusion; it is also one of resistance and transformation. Food activism is a potent domain where to

engage in, and catalise struggles for postcapitalist transformati-on. Moreover, its development is informed by strategic thinking and intentional action.

Drawing on feminist theories of social reproduction, this chapter also begins from the understanding that struggles over the means and conditions of sustaining life, such as those rela-ted to access to and control over food, are not marginal to class

struggle. Social reproduction theory highlights the everyday labour that sustains life —oftenunpaid, feminised, and raciali-sed— as central to the functioning of capitalist economies. From

this perspective, fights for food are not merely about nutrition, ecological balance, consumption, or production. Though often dispersed and fragmented, they embody broader efforts to recla-im collective control over the very conditions of life. These are

not peripheral or symbolic struggles; they are deeply political, with the potential to reconfigure the very foundations of social and economic life, including our relationship with nature. Mo-

reover, these theoretical approaches foreground the everyday as a crucial site to expose how power operates, being thus funda-mental as a starting point for political engagement and action.

This perspective on food as a key site for social change, raises two important questions: first, the task of imagining alternatives, i.e., what a just and sustainable food system might look like; and second, the strategic question of how to shift power relations and

reconfigure existing systems.

While some may view the act of imagining alternatives as irrelevant, as radically transforming social relations can open

up new, unforeseen possibilities, this chapter takes a different stance: not only imagining alternatives is important to define a



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horizon of struggle centered around the collective ownership of

the means of production and societal well-being, as it is about reclaiming knowledges and practices often dismissed or rendered invisible within capitalism. These alternative ways of knowing

and doing can inspire transformative pathways rooted in care, reciprocity, and cooperation. Such an approach calls for more than mere reformist adjustments to food systems and capitalism;

it demands openess to diverse forms of social organisation and a willingness to learn from both existing and experimental models. Furthermore, it emphasises the interconnectedness between the social, economic, ecological, and political realms, compelling us

to interrogate dominant notions of development and modernity.

The question of strategy requires us to understand what capitalism is, and how it operates within specific spatial and

temporal configurations, but also demand us to examine how power is exercised, contested, and reimagined in everyday life; to critically interrogate the roles of grassroots practices, soci-

al movements, markets, and the state; to consider the strengths and limitations of prefigurative versus contentious politics; and, importantly, to assume a commitment to build popular power

(rooted in subaltern groups) capable of enacting, and sustaining long-term, structural change. Taken together, these challenges underline the need for a political ecology of food systems that is both grounded and utopian, rooted in material realities while

remaining imaginative and an activator of social struggles in, against, and beyond capitalism.



The political ecology of food systems



Food is more than a biological need or a cultural symbol; it is a site where power, social hierarquies, and structural dynamics of

domination/subalternity are expressed, reproduced, and poten-tially challenged. Through a political ecology lens, food becomes as a prism through which the broader logic of capitalism, colo-

nialism, and patriarchy are made visible. It also enlightens the complex interplay between ecological conditions and social rela-



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tions in building food systems. And it becomes a crucial site for

better compreheending the promises and failures of modernity.

In result, it urges us to interrogate structural inequalities tied to land, labor, culture, and community, among other dimensions.

It raises critical questions: Who owns and controls the land? Who is excluded from it? How is land commodified, enclosed, or recla-imed? Who performs the labor that sustains food systems, and

under what conditions? Who has access to food, what kinds of food are available, and through what means? How are food memory, identity, and tradition dismissed, preserved or revived, particularly among Indigenous, diasporic, and marginalised communities? How

do communities organise themselves around food? Do they forge networks of care, resistance, and solidarity, or do they risk repro-ducing or exacerbating patterns of fragmentation and exclusion?

Such analysis can also reveal how these inequalities are con-tested, and possibly undone. Food intersects with struggles for justice, such as fair wages, equitable access to nutritious food, and

reparative practices for historically marginalised communities. It raises questions of sovereignty, i.e., the right of communiti-es to define their own food systems, rooted in local knowled-ge, autonomy, and self-determination. It links to transformative

ambitions, where extractive, industrial models are challenged-bycommunity-led alternatives that prioritise care, ecological sustainability, social equity, and collective organising.

Food emerges thus as both a site of struggle and a space of possibility. From resisting corporate land grabs and agro-indu-strial monopolies to building food cooperatives, urban gardens,

and agroecological networks, people and communities are not only claiming for survival, but they are reclaiming power and making new worlds.

In result, struggles around food hold a compelling potential for radical reimaginationand transformation. Within food acti-vism, two dominant strategic orientations can be identified. One centers on prefigurative politics, the other focuses on contentious

politics. These approaches, while distinct, often intersect and coexist within distinct food movements.



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The following sections dig deeper into these strategic orienta-

tions and the dilemmas they entail, before expanding the analysis through a critical exploration of debates within food activism, parti-cularly around food alternatives, food justice, and food sovereignty.



Prefigurative politics: performing

alternative futures in the present



Alternative food initiatives are often understood as embodying a prefigurative politics. This entails the creation in the ‘here and

now’ of a more just, democratic and sustainable society, including, for instance, “the development of consensus-oriented decision-ma-king procedures, the democratisation and ‘horizontisation’ of orga-nisational structures and the establishment of alternative relations

of property, power and production.” (Sande, 2013, p. 232)

A prefigurative politics includes ends-means consistency, in-tegration of future ideals into everyday practice, and direct acti-

on. Therefore, it has an experimental and exploratory nature, and it is immediate, active, and transformative. In food systems, this might take the form of agroecological farming, food cooperatives,

community- supported agriculture, as well as reclaiming land for community use, establishing autonomous zones, or building infra-structures that meet people’s needs outside state or market control.

These actions are not rehearsals for a distant revolution: they

are the revolutioninmotion, grounded in the convictions that the seeds for the future must be sown in the present. Rather than waiting for systemic change to be delivered through top-down

reform or revolutionary rupture, “a prefigurative approach seeks to create the new society ‘in the shell of the old’ [...]. In this sense, a prefigurative strategy is based on the principle of direct action, of

directly implementing the changes one seeks, rather than asking others to make the changes on one’s behalf.” (Leach, 2003, p. 1004)

Prefigurative politics usually is evaluated according to two distinct strategic orientations (Yates, 2020). One is characterised

by a rejection of strategy because it has no explicit political go-als, nor does it focus on building an organisational structure for



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advancing change. It focuses on lived experience, moral commu-

nities, and cultural transformations, emphasising the refusal to participate in oppressive systems, and to fight on the terms set by dominant institutions (Breines, 1989). Similarly, Gibson-Graham

(1996; 2006) approach of diverse economies look at the economy as a hybrid, containing no capitalist ‘essence’ than would limit the possibility of change from within the economy. Thereby, its

aim it to give visibility to non-capitalist forms of production and reproduction in order to inspire change.

The other orientation understands prefiguration as a strategy in itself. Here, everyday actions are seen as performative acts of

rebellion, as gestures aspiring “to reiventing daily life as a whole” (Graeber, 2002, p. 332). Maeckelbergh (2011, 14) argues that the goal is to “slowly make the state and multilateral organizations ob-

solete”, not by confrontation but through irrelevance. Holloway’s (2010) concept of “anti-power”and Hardt and Negri’s (2009) “cou-nter-power” similarly stress the creation of “cracks” in the system,

spaces where new social relations can florish and confront capi-talism. Erik Olin Wright’s (2020) notion of “real utopias” captu-res this strategic vision: building socially empowered instituti-ons from the bottom up that demonstrate viable alternatives and

gradually erode the dominance of economic capitalist structures.

The strategic implications of prefigurative politics are signi-ficant. Rather than confronting the state head-on, the objective is

to build autonomous, self-sustaining alternatives that make the state, and capitalist institutions increasingly irrelevant. Strategy is not imposed from above but emerges immanently from practi-

ce. As Sande (2013) puts it, what matters is how means and ends mutually evolve within the process of struggle.

This approach challenges typical understandings of political action that view power as something to seize or resist, emphasi-

sing power as emergent, as being (also) produced through social interactions and collective practices. Therefore, prefigurative poli-tics highlights the importance of process over rigid classifications,

focusing on the lived dynamics of political struggle rather than predefined categories such as “defensive” or “transformative” po-



116

litical action. This perspective may offer a richer understanding

of struggle and social mobilisation, moving beyond ‘external’ eva-luations that are detached from the concrete motion of politics.

For instance, in analysing the anti-austerity protests that

swept Southern Europe during the 2008 economic crisis, dis-missed by some as merely defensive responses to neoliberal re-structuring, for the Greek case, Kaika and Karaliotas (2014, 28)

showed the importance of the Indignados’ movement not only in resisting austerity measures, but in actively reshaping political imagination and practices on the long-run, grounded in solidarity and collective organising, in opposition to emerging exclusionary,

nativist, reactionary views rooted in far-right ideals.

However, a prefigurative approach is criticised by abstra-cting “the political” from its historical and geographical con-

texts, overlooking the situated nature of struggle in specific social relations and material conditions shaped by structural factors. This tendency can lead to a romantisation of the building of al-

ternatives or autonomous spaces, without fully engaging with the complexities of political engagement; it may also result in an essentialisation of these alternatives and spaces as inherently free from inequalities and opressions.

Many analyses grounded on prefiguration also adopt a benign view of crises, understood as a ‘natural’ opening for transforma-tion. While crises can indeed serve as catalysts for social action,

this perspective risks overlooking the uneven distribution of their impacts across different social groups and minimise the reality of human suffering. It may also idealise social change without

confronting the structural conditions that produce vulnerability and block collective action. Furthermore, without a clear strategy to challenge state power, such an approach leaves intact a central pillar of elite dominance within capitalist systems.

In sum, while a focus on prefiguration may offer valuable insights into how people actively resist oppressive power relations in their everyday lives and strive to build more liveable worlds,

and this is undoubtedly a vital dimension of political thought and practice, its strategic limitations must be critically acknowledged.



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Contentious politics: confronting power

through collective action



Contentious politics refers to forms of collective action that aim for systemic change by directly confrontating existing power

structures, such as states, corporations, or elites. It views power as centralised and hierarchichal. Its goal is to expose structural contradictions, interrup the normal functioning of political, eco-nomic, or social systems, and force societal change.

Unlike routine political participation, contentious politics emerges when people mobilise to challenge inequalities, resist repression, or demand transformation. These actions are often

reactive, triggered by crises, state violence, or perceived injusti-ces, but they are also strategic, aimed at shifting the balance of power, altering public discourse, and opening space for new

possibilities.

Contentious politics encompasses a wide repertoire of tacti-cs, ranging from mass protests, strikes, civil disobedience to re-volutions. These tactics are not mutually exclusive and are often

combined in dynamic ways. Movements adapt their strategies in response to repression, opportunity, and internal debates.

While contentious politics is often associated with rupture,

it is not limited to it. As Erik Olin Wright argues, effective mo-vements frequently combine multiple strategic orientations, such as rupture strategies that aim to break decisively with existing

institutions (e.g., revolutions); reformist strategies by working within institutions to achieve incremental change (e.g., policy advocacy); and interstitial strategies aimed at building alternati-ves in the “cracks” of the system (e.g., cooperatives, autonomous

zones) (Burawoy, 2020).

A key point advanced in this chapter is that practical al-ternatives are not separate from contentious politics; they are

often essential to it. Everyday practices such as community gar-dening, solidarity economies, or cooperative food systems may be perceived as apolitical, symbolic, prefigurative, or aligned with

“anti-power”. Yet, these practices can also function as acts of re-



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sistance against dispossession, exploitation, and opression, while

simultaneously expanding the terrain of social struggle. Rather than dismissing these practices from the start, we must recognise their strategic potential. They can help to create the material

and subjective conditions for broader social mobilisation. In this sense, contentious politics is not only about confrontation, it is also about construction.

The effectiveness of a plural strategy of contentious politics is deeply shaped by specific historical, geographical, and institu-tional contexts. Movements must navigatea complex landscape of structural constraints, such as state repression, capital’s mecha-

nics, mainstream cultural narratives, and fragmentation of the subaltern classes. As a result, strategic choices unfold within the messy, and shifting conditions of social struggle. As such, “co-

unter-power” strategies that focus solely on resistance without engaging with this complexity, and without seeking to challenge state power, risk becoming isolated and politically marginal, ope-

rating at the periphery of substantive change.

In a context marked by climate collapse, the resurgence of authoritarianism, deepening economic precarity, and rising hyper-individualism, a multi-pronged strategy of contentious

politics must also pay close attention to the everyday. Rebuil-ding daily life, rehumanising social relationships, and fostering solidarity among subaltern and marginalised groups are not only

vital for survival; they are also key towards restoring a sense of collective purpose and inspiring hope in the possibility of alter-native futures, both of which are fundamental for mobilising co-

llective action and strenghtening the social capacity to confront dominant powers.

This chapter calls for a critical engagement with prefigurati-ve and contentious politics approaches for both its potentials and

blind spots, and urges us to overcome analytical and normative silos in order to better compreheend the complex dynamics of transformative social action. A look into food activism may help

to clarify these points.



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Food justice: structural inequality and

community empowerment



The global food system is in the midst of a multidimensional cri-sis, characterisedbywidespread hunger, poor nutrition, rising of

diet-related diseases, environmental problems linked to soil erosi-on, biodiversity loss, water depletion, and disappearance of farms and rural depopulation. These are not isolated problems but syste-mic outcomes of an industrial, profit-driven agricultural model.

In response, a diverse landscape of food alternatives developed, such as organic agriculture, fair trade, the Slow Food movement, Community Supported Agriculture, Km0, and local food systems.

These initiatives seek to reclaim food systems through values of sustainability, justice, and community, offering not only practical solutions but also a deeper critique of the dominant food regime.

As Allen (2004) notes, they represent “persistent, patterned, and widely distributed collective challenges to the status quo,” pointing toward more equitable and ecologically grounded food futures.

However, as Allen (2008) warns, without a focus on social

justice, this type of initiatives may reproduce the same power dynamics as global, industrial food systems, creating marginal, safe spaces for the privileged rather than transformative alterna-

tives for society as a whole.

The concept of food justice emerged in the 1990s as a respon-se to the class and race- based elitism within the mainstream

food movement, especially in the U.S. Rooted in radical political struggles, particularly the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement, food justice reframes food not just as a nutritional or sustainabili-ty issue but as a site of racial, economic, and political struggle.

A powerful example is the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children Program, which addressed hunger while building community autonomy and political consciousness. The Panthers

understood food as deeply entangled with systemic oppression and used it as a tool for liberation (Patel, 2011; 2025).

Within this approach, scholars and activists have increasingly

challenged the assumption that ‘organic’, ‘local’, or ‘community-



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based’ food systems are inherently just. While often celebrated as

alternatives to industrial agriculture, these models can obscure deeper inequalities and fail to confront structural racismand eco-nomicexclusion (Lyson, 2004). Research has revealed that many of

alternative food networks are based in a cultural elitism that alie-nates working-class and racialised groups (Guthman, 2008), often underrepresenting the communities most affected by food insecu-

rity (Guthman, 2011), while contributing to reproduce whiteness andcolor-blind ideologies (Alkon & McCullen, 2011; Anguelovski, 2015). Moreover, when marginalised communities are included, they are often framed through a deficit lens, as lacking knowledge

or capacity, rather than recognised as agents of change(Figueroa, 2015). Alternative food networks frequently focus on consumer choice and lifestyle, overlooking structural issues such as land

access, labor rights, and the enduring legacies of colonialism and racial capitalism (Wittman et al., 2010; Alkon&Agyeman, 2011).

In contrast, food justice activism seeks to directly address

these limitations. It aims to confront the structural barriers to food access and reclaim cultural foodways, recognising that food systems are deeply embedded in racialised labor, gendered roles, and class-based exclusion. Grounded in the lived experiences of

those most impacted by food inequality, food justice emphasises community-led responses that meet immediate needs while buil-ding long-term empowerment. In this approach, developing local

food systems aims to address basic food needs, expand access to environmental and health benefits, and foster autonomy and collective power to the underserved and lower classes, thus in-

tegrating environmental sustainability with social justice goals, or what Alkon and Agyeman (2011) term as “just sustainability”.

Besides developing practical alternatives, food justice often

involves advocacy for equitable food policies, reclaiming state in-tervention to ensure fair distribution of nutritious food. Moreover, activists work to reclaim cultural food identities, promote auto-nomy and self-reliance, and strengthen community empowerment.

All of these efforts reflect a broader vision of food as a tool for social change. As Mares and Peña (2011), Morales (2011), Mc-



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Cutcheon (2011), and others have shown, food justice is about

transforming systems, not just accessing them.

While food justice has emerged as a powerful framework for addressing systemic inequalities in food systems, it is not exempt

from critique. As the movement has grown, so too have concerns about its strategic coherence, political depth, and susceptibility to co-optation. Scholars have noted a decline in structural cri-

tiques of capitalism and racism, with some strands of food justice discourse invoking a notion of grassroots-driven transition that risks detaching from the broader systems of domination it seeks to challenge (Holt-Giménez & Wang, 2011).

One of the most pressing critiques is that food justice, in some of its mainstream articulations, has become entangled with neo-liberal logic. As Constance et al (2014, 20) notes, the movement

increasingly “fits well within the neoliberal agenda of the globali-sation of the agrifood system”, emphasising individual choice over collective action, and filling the void left by state withdrawal rather

than contesting it. This neoliberalisation critique reflects a broader trend in which responsibility for systemic problems is devolved to individuals and communities, while the structural drivers of inequality, namely corporate power, state deregulation, and racial

capitalism, remain unchallenged. In this context, food justice risks becoming a palliative rather than a transformative force.

As many food justice initiatives emphasise local, communi-

ty-based solutions, while these can be empowering, they often rest on idealised notions of community that obscure internal hierarchies and broader structural forces. As Allen (2008, 2010)

andGoodman et al. (2012) argue, romanticising the ‘local’ can mask inequalities and can limit the movement’s capacity to scale or confront systemic power.

The stress on ethical consumption and market-based so-lutions, such as supporting local farmers, can obscure deeper structural constraints like poverty, labour exploitation, and land dispossession. As Guthman (2004) and Allen and Kovach(2000)

warn, alternative food systems are at risk of conventionalisati-on: being absorbed into the mainstream without challenging its



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core logic. Even when appearing radical or positioned outside

the mainstream, such initiatives can inadvertently“produce and reproduce neoliberal forms, spaces of governance, and mentali-ties,”thereby reinforcing the very systems they seek to dismantle

(Guthman, 2008, p. 1171).

Likewise, the most autonomous food spaces remain embedded in capitalist and state systems; they are shaped by laws, market

pressures, and financial dependencies. Moreover, the economic burdens of ethical food production often fall on small-scale farmers and producers, who must navigate precarious markets while uphol-ding values of sustainability and justice (Alkon & Agyeman, 2011).

In light of these critiques, scholars like Julie Guthman (2008) urge us to interrogate the micro-politics of activist projects: What strategic decisions undergird them? How are these strategies ope-

rationalised? What kinds of subjectivities do they produce?And how do place-based contingencies shape their outcomes?

This reflexive approach calls for a critical awareness of the

limits and contradictions within food justice activism. It deman-ds attention to power relations, structural constraints, and a wil-lingness to confront uncomfortable questions about complicity, cooptation, and strategic effectiveness.

However, building spaces of autonomy in itself can be re-levant to achieve broader goals of justice. For many Indigenous communities, food is about reclaiming traditional foodways as

a precondition for social justice. Food justice initiatives can also serve as spaces of healing for communities impacted by colonisa-tion, displacement, and systemic violence. Reconnecting through

food may help restore cultural memory, rebuild community ties, and address intergenerational trauma, potentially reworking su-bjectivities and enacting collective action to confront injustices.

At the heart of these debates are competing ontologies of

justice:



• A neoliberal conception frames justice as individual

responsibility, emphasising personal choice and market access

while ignoring structural inequalities. It often justifies minimal

state intervention and privatised solutions.



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• A liberal conception emphasises rights, opportunity, and

inclusion, seeking to remediate inequality through reforms.

However, it often leaves core power structures intact, aiming for

fairer distribution rather than systemic change.

• A radical conception of justice, as articulated by Allen (2014),

insists that “justice means creating the conditions for equality

by eliminating the structures and conditions of oppression

and inequality.” This vision demands systemic transformation,

addressing the root causes of injustice: capitalism, colonialism,

patriarchy, racism, and other interlocking systems of domination.



Food sovereignty: a transnational struggle

for justice, autonomy, and systemic

transformation



While food justice has often been rooted in urban, communi-ty-based movements, particularly in the Global North, food so-vereignty has a different genealogy (Edelman et al, 2014). It is

grounded in rural, agrarian, and Indigenous struggles, and was formally articulated by La Vía Campesina (LVC), a transnational alliance of peasants, Indigenous peoples, landless workers, and

small-scale food producers. Foundedin1993, LVC now represents over 200 million people across more than 80 countries, uniting diverse movements across the Global South and North in a shared resistance to the neoliberal, corporate-led model of agriculture.

Food sovereignty is both a critique of the global food system and a radical alternative. It challenges the dominant paradigm of food security, which focuses narrowly on production and distri-

bution, and instead centres questions of power and democracy: What food is produced? Where, how, by whom, and at what scale? Who controls distribution and consumption?

Initially framed as the right of nations to define their food systems, food sovereignty has evolved to reflect the rights of peoples, including Indigenous communities, fisherfolk, pasto-ralists, and forest dwellers. This shift reflects the movement’s



124

commitment to pluralism, inclusivity, and intersectionality, and

its recognition that sovereignty must be decentralised, partici-patory, and rooted in local knowledge and ecologies. Moreover, more recently it has progressed to explicitly include the ambition

of tackling opressions related to class, race, gender, age, among others, and build a society free of social relations of domination.

The movement’s vision is articulated through six foundatio-

nal pillars: food for people, not for profit; valuing food providers, especially small-scale and Indigenous producers; localising food systems to reduce dependency and ecological harm; democratic control over food policy and production; building knowledge and

skills through agroecology and horizontal learning; working with nature, not against it (LVC, 2007).

Food sovereignty is grounded in a radical conception of justi-

ce. It seeks not merely to redistribute resources but to dismantle the structural inequalities embedded intheglobal food regime. It rejects market-based and individualised solutions, recognising

the limits of consumer choice, localism, and ethical branding. Instead, it calls for collective political action, through a combi-nation of grassroots alternatives, social mobilisation, policy ad-

vocacy, and structural transformation (Desmarais, 2007).

Despite its transformative vision, food sovereignty is not without contradictions. One of the most debated issues is the role of the state (Edelman et al, 2014). While the movement uses

a rights-based language to demand recognition and protection, many states are themselves products of colonial and hierarchical structures, raising questions about their legitimacy as guarantors

of justice (Peña, 2005). In some countries, food sovereignty has been enshrined in constitutions and legal frameworks, but im-plementation often remains symbolic or contradictory (McKay et al., 2014; Giunta, 2014; Schiavoni, 2015; Clark, 2016).

All of this reflects a broader tension between state authority and grassroots autonomy. McKay et al. (2014, p. 1175) argue that food sovereignty embodies “a contradictory notion of sovereignty,

requiring simultaneously a strong developmentalist state and the redistribution of power to facilitate direct control over food systems



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in ways that may threaten the state”. This is consistent with McMi-

chael’s (2009) and Patel’s (2009) argument that “multiple and com-peting sovereignties” exist in food sovereignty: whereas the state is called to be a guarantor of rights, the “right of peoples” also calls for

advancing alternative forms of democratic organisation beyond the modern state. These “external” and “internal” dimensions of food sovereignty are not irreconcilable, but “how to navigate them is a

major question” (Shattuck et al., 2015, p. 425).

Shattuck et al. (2015) call for a relational approach to sovere-ignty that goes beyond views of food sovereignty as being either “of the state” or “of peoples/communities”. Inspired by Gramsci’s noti-

on of the integral state, they underline that sovereignty is not just a legal or territorial claim; it is a social relation, which is negotiated, contested, and co-constructed across multiple arenas: state insti-

tutions, markets, cultural narratives, civil society, and everyday practices. This perspective helps activists and scholars to focus on the terrain of struggle, attending to the concrete social relati-

ons that produce inequality and the mechanisms through which power is structured, experienced, and contested within specific contexts, with the aim of transforming them. It also supports the development of multi-scalar strategies that engage both grassroots

and institutional levels, without collapsing one into the other. As a result, food sovereignty is not a one-size-fits-all model.

However, an important point emphasised by both scholars

and LVC, is the relevance of building alliances across differen-ces. Holt-Giménez and Shattuck (2011) argue that “the nature and extent of reform or transformation possible” depends on

the convergence of progressive food movements with the radical camp, and that these must be based on non-instrumental alli-ances. Although cross-class alliances are needed, they sustain

that “linking the livelihood interests (production and reprodu-ction) of underserved communities in the North with those of the besieged peasantry in the Global South probably offers much stronger foundations for a more durable convergence” (ibid., 136).

Only through this “unity in diversity” is it possible to force “the state for the implementation of re-distributive land reform, so-



126

cial protections and safety nets”, while seeking to “challenge and

transcend the state”(ibid., 129).

LVC exemplifies the strategic potential of movement- and alliance-building in food struggles. Through its decentralised,

bottom-up organising model, LVC facilitates the sharing of stra-tegies and experiences across diverse contexts, amplifies grassro-ots voices in global policy forums, and resists the fragmentation

often causedbyneoliberalism. It coordinates resistance to har-mful trade regimes and corporate control over seeds, land, and water, while simultaneously advancing agroecology, land reform, and democratic food policy rooted in local knowledge.

Importantly, LVC centres grassroots leadership, ensuring that local struggles are connected to a global vision without being sub-sumed by it. Its emphasis on feminist, Indigenous, and youth leader-

ship reflects a commitment to intersectionalityandtransformative justice. In doing so, food sovereignty becomes not just a critique of the current system, but a framework for reimagining society itself.

Ultimately, food sovereignty links food systems to broader struggles for climate justice, racial and gender justice, economic democracy, and anti-colonial resistance. By forging alliances with labour unions, environmental collectives, feminist movements,

and anti-capitalist organisations, it builds a broad front aga-inst the interwoven systems of oppression that shape our world (Desmarais et al., 2014).



Conclusion



This chapter has situated food as a lens through which we can

understandandtransform the broad exploitative and oppressive systems that shape our lives. From the colonial legacies embed-ded in land ownership to the capitalist logic driving industrial

agriculture, food systems reflect and reproduce the structural inequalities of our world. Yet, they also offer a strategic site for resistance, (re)imagination, and social change.

In discussing food activism, this chapter has highlighted the importance of attending to context, contingency, and micro-po-



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litics, moving beyond analytical and normative silos between

prefigurative and contentious politics frameworks. While pre-figurative politics emphasises the lived experience of struggle and the everyday as a site of political action, offering a nuanced

understanding of “the political”, contentious politics stresses the necessity of collective action and social mobilisation to confront dominant power structures. Bridging these perspectives together

allows for a more complex view of power, both imposed from above and negotiated/contested from below, where the everyday intersects with ideals and material realities within structural constraints. It is through this convergence that we can beginto-

conceptualise radical subjectivities and envision the collective enactement of transformative change.

By examining a range of food movements, from food alter-

natives to food justice and food sovereignty, this chapter deepens the analysis of strategies for social change. Approaches that fo-cus on building difference and expanding “cracks” in the system,

without directly challenging dominant structures such as capita-list markets, neoliberal ideologies, and the state, risk reinforcing structural injustices or leaving those untoched. Even within a so-cial justice framework, neglecting these power structures may re-

sult in merely mitigating harm rather than enabling transformati-on. Advancing equity, autonomy, and self-determination requires centring issues of power and democracy through a plurality of

strategic actions, adapted to context and contingency: these in-clude a combination of grassroots alternatives, social mobilisati-on, policy advocacy, and structural change. This is exemplified

by La Vía Campesina’s notion of “sovereignty,” which reflects a movement- and alliance-building practice that fosters solidarity, amplifies diverse voices, and resists fragmentation, without back sliding local knowledges and leaderships. These alliances are not

just tactical but expressions of collective power aimed at driving systemic transformation in the food system, and beyond.

In a context of convergence of rising extractivism, authori-

tarianism, austerity, and climate breakdown, this chapter argues that food is a vital site of struggle. Beyond resisting deepening



128

exploitation and deteriorating living conditions, food initiatives

and movements can foster solidarity among subaltern and margi-nalised groups, departing from the everyday. These efforts are es-sential for making survival possible, while radicalising subjectivi-

tes and mobilising collective action to confront dominant powers, laying the groundwork for a more just and sovereign food future.



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Surviving Through Community



Building in Catastrophic Times3



In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the world has been mired deeper and deeper in massive crises of ecological

conditions, economic breakdown, and never-ending pandemics, affecting all, but particularly those made vulnerable by inequa-lities and injustice. Global media attention is mainly focused on

geopolitical shifts, economic restructuring, escalating inflation, and hunger. Anxieties about economic collapse take preceden-ce over climate collapse. Peace talks, discourse of being back to “normal,” and economic recovery overshadow the starkest and

bleakest ecological warnings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report. While we are cur-rently anticipating global warming between 1.5°C and 3.2°C, we

already find ourselves in unprecedented times: In March 2022, Antarctic areas reached 40°C above normal and North Pole re-gions hit 30°C above usual levels.4



1 Lau Kin Chi is one of the founding members of Global University for Sustainability, and

director of its executive team. She teaches at Lingnan University and is a board member of

PeaceWomen Across the Globe.

2 Sit Tsui is an associate professor at the Institute of Rural Reconstruction of China,

Southwest University, Chongqing, China.

3 This contribution has been originally published in the Monthly Review: An Independent

Socialist Magazine and Press. Available on: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/surviving-

through-community-building-in-catastrophic-times/#en12

4 Fiona Harvey, “Heatwaves at Both of Earth’s Poles Alarm Climate Scientists,” Guardian,

March 20, 2022.



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Development Paradox



The case of China illustrates the development paradox. After a

century of aggression by imperialist powers, China, mobilizing its material and human resources on a continental scale, has apparen-tly “succeeded” in building its industrial base, largely using rural

resources in the first three decades, and in catching up with “global citizenship” since the reform era. Its “success” in the development of its economy and enhancement of people’s living standards is,

however, wrought with contradictions, especially in the areas of en-vironmental contamination, financialization, and fresh water and energy supplies, posing serious challenges to China’s sustainability.

Faced with critiques of China’s contributions to global war-

ming, with China’s carbon dioxide emissions as an often-quoted reprimand, and with the urgent need to clean up pollution and restore ecological balance, China has begun serious efforts to

redress environmental issues in the last twenty years, with some remarkable outcomes.

In October 2021, at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity

in Kunming, under the theme of “Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, recognized China’s work in reducing pollution, restoring degraded

land, conserving species and ecosystems, and tackling poverty. She proposed that China’s ecological red line program could be applied to Southeast Asia with the Belt and Road Initiative to help countries

meet their post-2020 targets. 5 China’s proposal, “Drawing a ‘Red Line’ for Ecological Protection to Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change: Nature-Based Solution Initiative,” has been selected by the

United Nations as one of the fifteen best nature-based solutions around the globe. The program identifies China’s crucial ecological zones and enforces strict protection in those areas.

In 2007, at the seventeenth National Congress of the Chinese

Communist Party, an orientation toward creating an “ecological



5 Zhang Hui and Xu Liuliu, “China’s Ecological Red Line System, BRI to Help Countries

Achieve Post-2020 Targets,” Global Times, October 11, 2021.



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civilization” was formulated. In October 2021, China released

Responding to Climate Change: China’s Policies and Actions, stating that “China will implement its new development philosophy and create a new development dynamic to boost high-quality

development.… It will promote a comprehensive transition to green and low-carbon economic and social development, bring a fundamental change to its eco-environment by accumulating

small changes, and achieve a model of modernization in which humanity and nature exist harmoniously.” 6

“A new development philosophy” and “a model of moderni-zation” call for remedial measures within a development paradox

associated with the double exploitation of humanity and nature. In the international division of labor, China has played the role of “world factory” in the last four decades. Accused of being the

world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China has steadily reduced the intensity of its carbon emissions and reinforced the effort to achieve its nationally determined contributions to com-

bating climate change. In September 2020, president Xi Jinping pledged at the UN General Assembly that China would aim to have its carbon dioxide emissions peak by 2030 and carbon ne-utrality by 2060. Other pledges include having renewable energy

sources account for 25 percent of total energy consumption, in-stalling enough solar and wind power generators for a combined capacity of 1.2 billion kilowatts, and boosting forest coverage by

around six billion cubic meters—all by 2030.7

China also pledged to make efforts to reverse the rapid growth of its carbon dioxide emissions. From 2005 to 2020, there

was a drop in carbon intensity, totaling a reduction of about 5.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The average coal consu-mption of thermal power plants also decreased to 305.8 grams of standard coal per kilowatt hour, a reduction of 370 million tons

of carbon dioxide emissions by coal-fired power generation units in 2020 compared to 2010.



6 “Responding to Climate Change: China’s Policies and Actions,” State Council Information

Office of the People’s Republic of China, October 27, 2021.

7 “Responding to Climate Change.”



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It should be noted that China’s moves to remedy the energy

issue is combined with its poverty-alleviation efforts, coupling energy measures with provision of social benefits. China has built more than 26 million kilowatts of photovoltaic power stations and

thousands of “sunshine banks” in poor rural areas, benefiting about 60,000 poor villages and 4.15 million poor households. Its instal-led capacity for new energy storage stood at 3.3 million kilowatts,

the largest in the world.8 Hence, as a policy taken up by the state, economic concerns can be combined with social equity pursuits. China is the first developing country to realize the UN Millennium Development Goals by reducing the number of poor people by 50

percent and eliminating extreme poverty in 2020. More than 800 million rural people have been lifted out of destitution.

One might think the pandemic, despite its disruption of

global economic activities and its toll on human lives, would at least help alleviate the dire ecological crisis. Yet, economic con-cerns remain paramount. The Global Carbon Budget 2021 Report,

released in November 2021, stated that global carbon dioxide emissions fell by 5.4 percent in 2020 due to the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, but rose by about 4.9 percent in 2021 to 36.4 billion tons, bringing emissions almost back to 2019 levels.

The promise of a post-pandemic “green recovery” has unfortu-nately not come true.

The global division of labor and China’s state policies, ma-

nifested in its foreign policies of trade, are important, but the country remains trapped in the development dilemma and still faces the challenge of green recovery. In the midst of the grave

challenges of climate collapse, the agents of change need to be grassroots communities, who can lead a general overhaul of ma-instream values and cultures based on developmentalism. Re-

sistance to globalization can be seen in places where the logic of modernization is fraught with tensions and adverse consequen-ces. It is in looking into and learning from alternative grassroots practices that we can create a radical paradigm shift.



8 “Responding to Climate Change.”



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Visions and Actions from the Margins



Taking a subaltern perspective, we find practices of confronting

climate collapse and ecological disasters in China among the Chinese people. We propose that ecology take precedence over economy, agriculture over industry and finance, and life over

money and profit.

There are always local initiatives showing possibilities for the collective use of resources and people’s voluntary participation in

social life. They result from people’s efforts to find solutions to problems created by the imposition of directives and organization from above according to objectives of modernization in compe-tition with the West. These local initiatives contain elements of

the traditions of rural communities. It is these elements, rooted in people’s knowledge and practice, that can constitute the re-sistance to becoming completely engulfed by globalization. They

can lead to openings for alternatives by engaging with everyday life, reviving such elements in different contexts. The innovati-ve moves of the people are neither traditional nor modern, but

contemporary—and we must learn how to grasp the spontaneity and creativity of these resistances. People think on their own feet, grasping the very situations in which they are thrown and coming up with answers to the very reality posed to them.

To mitigate the adverse effects of globalization with capi-tal flow and labor migration, we must return to localization, re--communalization, and re-ruralization. The alternative path goes

for small peasantry, ecological agriculture, self-sufficiency, and community regeneration. We must continue to defend food so-vereignty and to explore local plans for water and energy. They

should be small-scale and not spectacular mega projects. Small is beautiful as well as powerful.

For the past twenty years, we have actively engaged in the new rural reconstruction movement in China and the PeaceWomen

Across the Globe campaign. As a response to the problems cau-sed by industrialization and modernization in a developing cou-ntry such as China, rural reconstruction has been designed as a



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political and cultural project to defend peasant communities and

agriculture. These grassroots efforts are separate from, parallel to, and sometimes in tension with projects initiated by the sta-te. As an attempt to construct a platform for direct democracy

and to experiment with participatory, urban-rural integration for sustainability, the Chinese model of rural reconstruction may help build a politics for alternative modernization. Another initi-

ative, 1,000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005, was launched in 2003 as a way to make the thoughts and practice of subaltern women more widely known. A call went out across the globe and an international committee of twenty women from all continents

was formed. After selection and documentation, one thousand women from over 150 countries were collectively nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

We have witnessed many grassroots people mobilize their communities to tackle ecological degradation and strive for sel-f-sufficiency with dignity. As organic intellectuals, we work to

make these efforts not only heard and visible, but also to help connect them with one another. Three peacewomen stories will be narrated here as examples of how local women have devoted

themselves to social, cultural, and ecological experiments: Yin Yuzhen and her family deploy localized knowledge to deal with water shortages and desertification, and to sustain afforestation in northwest China; Yun Jianli and her volunteer team bridge the

gap between rural and urban communities to negotiate with the South-North Water Diversion Project and overcome water pol-lution and bureaucracy in central China; and Wang Pinsong and

her community fought against the dam building project at Tiger Leap Gorge in southwest China to protect their home villages for future generations. Their stories inform how we can equip

ourselves with survival strategies in catastrophic times.



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Yin Yuzhen: People’s Science in Greening

the Desert



In China, persistent efforts to address environmental issues have come from both above and below. China has taken various mea-

sures to build the carbon sink capacity of ecosystems and ensure that forests, grasslands, wetlands, oceans, soil, and frigid zones play their role in carbon sequestration. China has the highest growth in forest coverage and the largest area of artificial forests.

At the end of 2020, China’s forest area stood at 220 million hectares, its forest coverage reached 23 percent, and forest car-bon storage approached 9.19 billion tons.9 From 2016 to 2020,

China conducted desertification control on almost eleven million hectares, addressed desertification on 1.65 million hectares, and applied comprehensive treatment of soil erosion to an additional

310,000 square kilometers of land. Saihanba and Kubuqi are two shining examples of the “desert to oasis” miracle. The Saihanba forestation project, the world’s largest artificial plantation, na-med “the Green Lung of north China,” won the 2021 Land for

Life Award by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Previously, Saihanba won the Champions of the Earth award by the UN Environment Programme in 2017.10

According to NASA research, the global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent from 2000 to 2017. China and India account for one third of the greening but only 9 percent of the planet’s land

area covered in vegetation. “China alone accounts for twenty-five percent of the global net increase in leaf area with only 6.6 percent of global vegetated area. The greening in China is from forests (42 percent) and croplands (32 percent), but in India is mostly from

croplands (82 percent) with minor contribution from forests (4.4 percent).”11 In addition to official programs of mitigating land de-



9 “Responding to Climate Change.”

10 “Saihanba Forest Farm Wins UN Pact’s Land for Life Award in China,” CGTN, September

30, 2021; “Saihanba Afforestation Community—Inspiration and Action,” Champions of the

Earth, UN Environment Programme, accessed May 25, 2022.

11 Chi Chen et al., “China and India Lead in Greening of the World Through Land-Use



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gradation, air pollution, and climate change, we have identified

grassroots people’s initiatives and outstanding contributions.

Yin Yuzhen is a simple peasant woman, but she also became a people’s scientist through years of self-learning in the desert. In

1985, as a 20-year-old woman from Shaanxi Province, Yin married and moved into the interior of Mu Us Desert in Inner Mongolia to an area named Jingbei Tang in Uxin Banner. The adverse natural

conditions were unimaginable, and sand was present everywhere. All that they saw, touched, stepped on, at home or outside, was sand. The wind blew sand grains into their nostrils, ears, and mouths; when the storm stopped, the deadly silence was haun-

ting—only Yin and her husband lived in that area. Confronted by the arduousness of her conditions, she made up her mind to start planting trees. Yin began to dig irrigation ditches for water.

Sadly, sandstorms destroyed the ditches. In the winter, she bundled sunflower stems to prevent the wind from destroying them. The following spring, she dug ditches, planting five thousand willow

trees. Unfortunately, the sand grains again destroyed her efforts. It took a long time, but one day dew came, then rain (not strong nor often, but visibly)—then bees, birds, and butterflies followed.

Having worked hard for thirty-seven years, Yin and her fa-

mily have planted five hundred thousand trees, thus creating countless oases of bushes and trees on an area of forty-seven square kilometers. She has planted more than one hundred di-

fferent bush and tree species and learned which ones grew best. On average, Yin plants more than thirty thousand poplars, digs two hundred thousand holes for willows, and grows four hun-

dred thousand poplar firewood and purple locusts every year. Through trial and error, with many tormenting failures, she has developed an incredible landscape for her habitat and adapted

to the vicissitudes of nature in her location, discovering how to make sure certain species survive at specific times of the year, thus developing her unique ways of forestation.



Management,” Nature Sustainability 2 (2019): 122–29; “China and India Lead the Way in

Greening,” NASA Earth Observatory, accessed May 25, 2022; “Human Activity in China and

India Dominates the Greening of the Earth, NASA Study Shows,” NASA, February 11, 2019.



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In the meantime, she is known far beyond Inner Mongolia as

a respected expert in greening deserts. We invited Yin to attend local and international workshops and seminars to exchange experiences of recovering and restoring degraded landscapes. In

2015, we organized a field trip to visit Yin’s home, and found that her family grew potatoes, corn, carrots, watermelons, and grapes, and raised sheep and chickens.

Since 2013, she has built an ecological tourism center. She has won over sixty awards at home and abroad, such as the Ida Somazzi Prize for outstanding merits for peace and human rights in 2013 in Switzerland. In 2015, she was selected as one of Ten

Persons of the Year of Devotion to Homeland by the China De-votion to Homeland Cultural Development Association. Inspired by Yin’s afforestation work, peasants and herdspeople in the vi-

cinity become involved in afforestation. The forest coverage rate reached 32.3 percent in Uxin Banner, and nearly 6,700 square kilometers of barren sand were turned green. We have produced

a documentary about her.12

China launched the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program in 1978 as an anti-desertification effort, consisting of forestati-on in northern China. The State Forestry Administration data

showed that the forest coverage in the treated areas had increased from 5.05 percent in 1977 to 12.4 percent at the end of 2012. This is attributed to the hard work of people like Yin, who do not lose

heart, but just act—simple acts, prior to government acts. Never discouraged by failure, she has not only improved her living con-ditions and changed her fate but also motivated many peasants

and herdspeople to join her in afforesting the desert. This is how Yin is praised by her community: “She is the epitome of coura-ge, patience and perseverance. Her work in greening the desert commands universal respect.”

Yin once remarked, “I would rather die of fatigue from figh-ting the sand than be bullied by the sand and wind.” In her eyes, sandstorms are her enemy more than the bureaucracy that failed



12 “PeaceWomen Across the Globe,” Global University, accessed May 25, 2022.



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to resolve the problem. Even though local authorities distributed

some seedlings to peasant households, the local population was initially reluctant to take the matters into their own hands. But Yin, an illiterate peasant, mapped the local resources and col-

lected the unwanted seedlings from other villagers. She refused to move to more livable areas and was determined to take root in a desert. Seeking expert advice, with various other resources, she

has developed a local and people-centered approach for effective sand area restoration. She not only produces local knowledge for basic livelihood, but also develops people’s science on soil, wa-ter, forest, and food, necessary for communal survival. Her story

demonstrates how a simple village woman, as a persistent self--learner and food grower, can succeed in confronting the unpre-dictable climate. She has amazed the public with her stamina,

persistence, and innovation.



Yun Jianli: Voluntarism to Decontaminate

the Han River



In the spring of 2000, Yun Jianli, a former high school teacher,

was shocked to see that there was an outfall along the Han Ri-ver in Hubei Province, into which gray-black sewage was being discharged directly. Her friend commented that it was not too

bad when compared to the truly dirty Zaoyang River. To see for herself, Yun organized a field trip. She was absolutely stunned to see that the water was terribly smelly, colored like soy sauce, and foaming. She thought: “This filthy water mixed with the Han

River directly destroys the water quality. Will it not damage Xi-angfan City people’s health in the long run? If we do not stop it, how can we face future generations?”

Rapid industrialization and urbanization for decades have led to worsening pollution. The Environmental Protection Law

was formally promulgated in China in late 1989 after it was introduced on a trial basis a decade earlier. These laws tended to be vague in their definitions and provisions and were often

ignored. Penalties stated in the laws were criticized as being



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too lenient to effectively enforce pollution control. Many low-

-technology and high-waste-producing factories moved to Chi-na because of its low penalties on environmental pollution.13

In the 1990s, two decades into the reform period, local

small and medium enterprises were encouraged to take up pro-duction, offering employment and the bases for China’s light industries to take off, and pollution became acute. The con-sequence was that over half of China’s rivers were polluted. In

the seven major rivers, over 80 percent of water was polluted. In Beijing, over 70 percent of rivers and tributaries were pol-luted. Industrial waste, sewage, and used water from irrigation

were the main sources of water pollution in the country. The main rivers and their tributaries were estimated to be receiving about 70 percent of China’s wastewater, with 41 percent rece-

ived by the Yangtze River alone. An official survey in 1990 showed that sixty-five out of the ninety-four rivers investigated were polluted to different extents. It was estimated that 45,000 metric tons of wastewater was poured into rivers and lakes

every year, of which only about 30 percent was treated. Even so, over 40 percent of the treatment was below standard. In Gu-angdong Province, of forty-seven major cities, forty-three had

polluted underground water. About 70 percent of wastewater was industrial waste. China produced more wastewater per unit of product than other industrialized countries. Small lakes near

large industrial areas were particularly polluted. For example, a lake in Hubei Province was found to contain 1,670 tons of wastewater per 100,000 cubic meters.14

According to the latest statistics, in 2020 the combined

proportion of state-controlled water sections with good-qua-lity surface water increased to 83.4 percent (the target was 70 percent). The proportion of water sections with bad quality

surface water below grade V decreased to 0.6 percent (the



13 Lau Kin Chi et al., “China,” in The Dispossessed: Victims of Development in Asia (Hong

Kong: Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives, 1997), 33–34.

14 Lau et al., “China.”



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target was 5 percent).15 Threatened by polluted water and en-

vironmental degradation, local people like Yun took initiatives to deal with the urgency of survival through voluntarism and rural-urban community mobilization.

In 2002, Yun turned 69 years old and experienced a tur-ning point in her life. She founded Green Han River, an envi-

ronmental protection organization, to tackle water pollution in her hometown. She has put tremendous effort into raising public awareness and concern in Xiangfan City. As a result, the water

quality of the Han River, the source of China’s south-north water diversion project, has improved.

When she first began to engage with the green movement, people’s awareness of environmental issues was minimal. Many

failed to understand her; others thought she was insane. Gover-nmental officials thought she was too nosy, while factory owners were hostile. Yun visited villages, factories, and mountain areas

along the Han River to investigate the sources of pollution. She wrote over one hundred investigative reports and proposals, such as “Han River Xiangfan Water Pollution Investigation Report,” “Do-

mestic Sewage Treatment is Urgent,” “Air Quality in Urban Areas Is Worrying,” “Don’t Turn Industrial Parks into Pollution Sources,”

“Regulate Ginger Processing Enterprises as Soon as Possible to Pre-vent Another Major Source of Pollution Spreading,” among others.

The association currently has 81 organizational members, 180 individual members, and more than 30,000 volunteers. Among them are former officials, retired teachers, senior engi-

neers, bureaucrats, private entrepreneurs, and journalists. The volunteer team has become larger and larger, with members’ ages ranging from kindergarten age to over 80 years old. Team mem-

bers are volunteers and work is self-financed. For example, in 2006, in order to contribute to the safe drinking water project for Zhaiwan villagers along the Tangbai River, the team went to the village more than forty times, bringing their own food and

spending the night in a tent, without adding any burden to the villagers. They always stay at the cheapest hotels in urban areas.



15 “Responding to Climate Change.”



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They uphold the principle of self-financing as well as the spirit of

mutual help between the city and the countryside.

Green Han River has held forty free environmental education training courses, in which over two thousand teachers from over

a thousand schools and units, and environmental volunteers from various fronts, have participated. Environmental education has been introduced on campus, in rural areas, institutions, com-

munities, and enterprises almost a thousand times, with face-to-face presentations and photo exhibitions for more than 530,000 people. By 2018, they had organized over a thousand fieldtrips to investigate pollution sources along the Han River and its tributa-

ries, traveling more than 100,000 kilometers.

Yun is often referred to as “Sister Yun of Environmental Protection” and children call her “Environmental Protection

Granny,” a name that pays tribute to her care of nature as well as of next generations. “To protect a river is a huge project, relying only on the power of environmental protection volunteers is not

enough, we cannot stay to monitor the river every day,” commen-ted Yun. “Only by mobilizing the people along the river to protect their own rivers, there is hope; only by mobilizing the whole so-ciety to participate, there is hope for the future of the ecological

movement.”

Her story shows the vitality of local movements that, rather than adopting an antagonistic attitude, work with government

and enterprises, despite not always being welcomed by interest blocs. She also demonstrates how to educate, persuade, and mobi-lize the general public, both in rural and urban areas, to identify

with the care of “mother river” through volunteer work. This kind of identification and voluntarism shows that ecology ta-kes precedence over economy, and communal well-being takes precedence over money and profit. Yun was an educated youth

who went to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Her endeavors of popular mobilization for the common good sustain the collaborative legacies of intellectuals, peasants, and workers.



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Wang Pinsong: All Ethnicities for the Rural

Commons



The story of Wang Pinsong (1924–2009) and her community is an inspiring example of efforts to counter the forces of moderniza-

tion. She was old but not frail, widowed but not solitary, marked by the hard lines of life but not miserable or plaintive. Hope was generously on offer from her.

In 1924, Wang was born in Shangri-La by the Gold Sand

River in southwest China, which has been inhabited by over fifteen ethnic groups for generations and generations (Wang’s family alone is composed of five ethnicities). Wang was of Bai

ethnicity, her husband Han, her daughter-in-law Naxi, and her granddaughters-in-law Pumi and Hui. The many ethnic groups celebrate their histories with rich Indigenous traditions and ri-

tuals, with a particular respect for nature. The name Pinsong, for example, means “character of the pine tree”—integrity and uprightness. Wang lived all her life in Shangri-La. On finishing primary school, she ran away from home, walked three days to

town to sit for an examination for a regular school, and received the second-highest score, but her family refused to let her study because she was a girl. She taught arithmetic for one year in a

primary school, becoming the first woman teacher in the region. At 19, she got married. The tradition in her region was that men busied themselves with art—such as music, calligraphy, painting,

and poetry—while women were left with all the labor at home and in the fields. Wang’s husband was often away from home, and he returned to Shangri-La as the first Communist Party member in the village.

Wang had been revered in the village for her capability, ge-nerosity, and optimism. As a midwife, she had welcomed three generations into the world. Wang was addressed intimately by

all as “grandma,” and was respected and loved for her dedication and simplicity. The sense of community in the region has always been strong. With so many ethnic groups living in the village, a

culture of mutual respect has prevailed.



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In the region, people relate to one another in a special way.

Those born in the same year, regardless of race, ethnicity, or clan, relate to each other as “kin of the same root” and remain friends throughout their lives. All their relationships are exten-

ded, so that the father, mother, brother, and cousin of a “root kin” are one’s own “root” father, mother, brother, and cousin as well. Hence, all families in the village are related in one way or

another, becoming one big family. A special respect for difference and diversity is unique in this rural region by the beautiful river.

With such bonds of intimacy in the village, it is not sur-prising that the villagers were united in their resistance against

the dam-building project at the Tiger Leap Gorge. If the dam were built, one hundred thousand villagers would be displaced, thirty-three thousand acres of fertile land by the riverbanks wou-

ld be submerged, and the diverse cultures of this region destroyed along with it. The villagers responded to the developers soliciting the conditions under which they would sell the land: “There is no

condition; our land is not for sale; our land is priceless; our land is our very dear life; we are not giving it up; if it will be so, let us be submerged with our land.” Over 90 percent of the villagers signed a statement to refuse any offer or bribe from developers.

In December 2005, on a freezing night, beside a campfire, we heard the local people sing:



Of beauty and calm is Gold Sand River,

now put at stake at developers’ hand;

we compatriots and natives here,

arm in arm, defend our land.

Of beauty and calm is our native land,

the solidarity of all ethnicities

makes a bond

for us to defend Gold Sand land.

The land is invaluable treasure for us peasants,

tons of gold cannot part us from our land.



The deep involvement of the villagers with one another in

their daily lives and in their actions against the dam is something



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like second nature to them, a nature grounded in their ties to,

and their care for, the soil, the mountains, the water, the plants, and the people that constitute their world. The diversity of nature nurtures them as they oblige themselves to nurture the diversity of

nature in return. Hence, like nature, they are open to diversity and difference, the critical life force of all sustainable relations of peace.

Wang had lived through the most tumultuous years of the

twentieth century and experienced the many ups and downs on the ground. Amid the turmoil of war and revolution, amid the aspirations for peace and freedom, she had lived with her per-sonal pains and losses. She had suffered the traumatic loss of

her eldest grandson, Xiao Liangzhong (1972–2005), who died a premature death from exhaustion and heart attack in the course of fighting against the building of the Tiger Leap Gorge dam.

Xiao was an anthropologist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He mobilized his colleagues and friends in Beijing to join the campaign to suspend the dam project.

On the level of affect, Wang was inspiring in her practices. She showed us the potentialities of the politics of becoming, a politics characterized by openness. Wang was open to a quiet

passion for life, a reticent intimacy with her community, a furi-ous tenderness for the land, a tender fury against injustice and exploitation, and an uncertain living in the present, with hope. It is an affirmation of life that allows one to immerse oneself in it,

opening up to the capacity to affect and be affected. In the face of the daily forces of marginalization churned out by instituti-onal violences—political, economic, and legal—as well as cul-

tural violences along axes of ethnicity and gender, the practices of Wang and many women of her generation exhibit ingenuity and determination in their unyielding efforts to inhabit the mar-gins. They show us how to imagine peace without succumbing

to the institutional and cultural violences that dominate the un-derstanding of peace. They show us that peace is not an end to be achieved by people vying for the center of control. They show

us that peace is a pedagogical process here and now in our daily lives, a process through which we continuously learn to live with



148

differences and diversities in relating to one another and to na-

ture, with the readiness to be responsive. It is a process through which difference, rather than being threatening and in need of eradication, nourishes and enriches us.

The building of a dam at the Tiger Leap Gorge was suspen-ded. However, nowadays there are construction projects of natio-nal parks and dams in other parts along the Gold Sand River. On

the graveyard of Xiao Liangzhong, there is a written scripture: The Son of Gold Sand River. His mother remarked, “I lost my son, but the Gold Sand River is preserved.” The villagers from diffe-rent ethnicities sustain the legacies of the anti-dam movement:

“The great river at our doorstep is a resource, and no one has the right to destroy her. We have to hand over this great river to our children from generation to generation.” The many ethnic groups

take roots and make a bond through the Gold Sand River. They not only defend small peasant agriculture on their ancestral land, but also preserve rural communities along the mother river, with

the characteristics of self-sufficiency and self-governance.



Toward Ecological Communism



Here, it would be useful to revisit Samir Amin’s advocacy of de-linking by countries on the periphery and the semi-periphery. As Amin explained, delinking refers to “the organization of a system

of criteria for the rationality of economic choices based on a law of value, which has a national foundation and a popular content, in-dependent of the criteria of economic rationality that emerges from the domination of the law of capitalist value that operates on a world

scale.”16 The delinking strategy implies a steering away from the glo-bal division of labor that favors the developed West, detrimental to the resource and currency sovereignty of countries at the periphery

and semi-periphery. In this long struggle for a paradigm shift, the state, with popular support, should take an autonomous path in prioritizing the needs of its sovereignty and the people’s livelihood

instead of accepting impositions by the global imperialist hegemons.



16 Samir Amin, “A Note on the Concept of Delinking,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 10,

no. 3 (1987): 435–44.

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China has charted a path of twists and turns in its delinking

and relinking strategies as against the hegemonic West. In its first twenty years, new China was subject to isolation and hos-tilities, first by the U.S. camp and then by the Soviet camp. For

about a decade, before China reconciled with the United States and rejoined the United Nations in 1971, China was obliged to seek development within its own borders and thereby achieved

some degree of delinking, which was presented as embarking on a road of self-reliance. This was more the result of necessity than of choice. The reform of 1978 was a reaction to the challenge of

globalization but it was not necessarily resistance against the essence of globalization according to capitalist values. The dream of modernizing China, of countering imperialist domination and occupation, has been based for over a century on China’s drive

to emulate its rivals: hence the slogan of the 1910s of acquiring science and democracy, the slogan of the 1950s of catching up with Britain and the United States, and the recent slogan of the

great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

China has struggled with the predicaments and consequen-ces of the development trap: environmental degradation, rural-

-urban inequalities, and an enlarging gap between the rich and the poor. That is the background to the state policies of “eco-logical civilization,” “new socialist rural reconstruction,” “dual circulation,” “rural revitalization,” and “common prosperity.”

These policies signify a necessary and positive turn toward in-ternal circulation and balancing the gaps between the coastal and hinterland regions, between the rural and the urban, and

reducing class and social polarizations.

Paradoxically, the state plays, on the one hand, the role of an engine for modernization, which is by essence exploitative,

destructive, and unjust. On the other hand, the state acts as a regulator addressing internal demands and securing basic liveli-hood for the majority. This can be shown in the accomplishment of the elimination of extreme poverty, as well as the application

of “putting people and life first,” such as through free vaccination and medical treatment for all during the COVID-19 pandemic.



150

These endeavors contradict the logic of capitalism that treats the

poor, weak, sick, and dying as disposable. In this sense, the state is capable of rejecting a capitalist logic and also of mobilizing social engagement for the common good.

The most challenging issue is that four decades of open-door reform have essentially placed China under the rules and regu-lations of the global economy dominated by the hegemony of

the United States and the developed West. Following the logic of globalization, interest blocs in different facets of China’s eco-nomic, political, social, and cultural life have formed and conso-lidated themselves, with an obsession on economic growth and

monetary profits. Meanwhile, in cultural terms, the advocacy of self-interest and social Darwinism and the reduction of human relationships to monetary ones, which have been legitimized and

promoted since the reform, are but the more flagrant emulation of the values and cultures of modernization. In this march toward modernization, and with the general disintegration of rural com-

munities, what is sidelined are the values of traditional cultures that hold communities together: giving, reciprocity, tolerance, resilience, mutual aid, collectivity, and sustainability.

Thus, rather than relying on a benevolent state or a good-

-willed leadership to navigate away from the development trap, people on the ground are becoming more and more aware of their need to play a part in reversing the suicidal trend globalization

imposes on them—that is, the need to rescue themselves from the impacts of development and climate collapse, and nurture values alternative to capitalist greed and self-interest. Thus, it

is not just a matter of looking to the state for accountability and implementing policies. Rather, it is necessary to take a bottom-up approach by turning our eyes to the people on the ground and their creative and innovative ways to tackle societal issues, relying

on community bonds to carve their common destiny. These hum-ble efforts, as the examples of the three peacewomen show, could easily be dismissed as trivial or insignificant for people obsessed

with looking to the state or corporations to take the lead. But it is precisely in recognizing the grassroots people’s efforts in their



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local specificities that much can be learned about how to deal

with the overarching climate collapse we are facing.

The stories of the three peacewomen show that feminist appro-aches to collective problems can fundamentally challenge the patri-

archal power relations that threaten a community’s self-sufficiency and autonomy, and that impose the logic of modernization on the diverse trajectories taken by local inhabitants. The people’s initia-

tives to address problems have come before the government policy of adjustment. They do not wait for, are not dependent on, the go-vernment to resolve problems. The conversations and mutual lear-ning and support of these local initiatives could be a reference for a

national solution, as well as a globalization of people’s resistances.

In these catastrophic times, it is urgent to learn how to sur-vive climate collapse. Climate collapse is global, but efforts of mi-

tigation for community survival need to be based on a locale, or a bedrock of social transformation. We desperately need to identify and recognize the contributions of intellectuals and activists at

the grassroots. The peacewomen demonstrate strong women’s le-adership in daily struggles, producing local knowledge for family and communal survival, mobilizing volunteers to cherish nature over money, prompting government and business sectors to act,

facilitating collaboration between rural and urban communities, and consolidating the commons for people in all their diversity.

Having the will to survive together and learn the know-how

of problem-solving may save us, as communities, from the doom of barbarism. This may also contribute to the envisioning and propagation of ecological communism as a radical rejection of the

capitalist logic and paradigm, and its devastating consequences on humanity and all species on the planet. “Abundance” envisi-oned for communism cannot be materially defined, but needs to be ethically restrained, incorporating ecological concerns, and

enriched spiritually rather than materially. It is about creating sustainable livelihoods with the commons managed by local communities. Herein lies grassroots people’s agency for a radical

change of power relations and human-nature relations embodied in the long struggles for re-communalization and re-ruralization.



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Communal Governance and



Production in Rural China Today3



I revere land. Land is an important resource for human survi-

val; historically, we have the God of Land and the God of Grain.

Land is a resource inherited from our ancestors’ hard work. They

want to give their descendants a concrete material base of land

resources in the hope that future generations can live on. I dare

not take away the happiness and welfare of my descendants just

to prioritize my self-interest!



— Lu Hanman, former village secretary of the Communist Party

of China in Yakou Village



The Rise and Fall of the People’s Commune



Starting in the 1950s and into the ’70s, the People’s Commune system played an important part in New China’s pursuit of nati-onal industrialization, even as the country was under sanctions

by the United States and the Soviet Union. The emergence of the People’s Commune in 1958 could not be separated from the accomplishment of land reform (1949–1952) and the movement

of mutual aid and cooperatization in agricultural production (1952–1957).



1 Lau Kin Chi is one of the founding members of Global University for Sustainability, and

director of its executive team. She teaches at Lingnan University and is a board member of

PeaceWomen Across the Globe.

2 Sit Tsui is an associate professor at the Institute of Rural Reconstruction of China,

Southwest University, Chongqing, China.

3 This contribution has been originally published in the Monthly Review: An Independent

Socialist Magazine and Press. Available on: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/communal-

governance-and-production-in-rural-china-today/



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The land reform gave birth to hundreds of millions of small land

property owners. However, the scattered small peasants gradually realized that it was difficult for any individual family to increase agricultural production. The “Three-Donkey-Legs Poor Coopera-

tive” (三条驴腿穷棒子社) was hailed as a model of peasant coope-ration and self-reliance. In October 1952, twenty-three househol-ds in Xipu Village, Hebei Province, set up a primary agricultural

production cooperative, with only 230 mu (Chinese acre) of land and a “three-leg donkey” as their common property. The “three donkey legs” referred to the three-fourths of the shares given to the twenty-three households. The peasants worked hard together

to fetch firewood from the mountains in exchange for carts, oxen, mules, sheep, and small farm tools. They recognized the power of unity, so their membership grew to more than eighty households.

In 1956, Xipu and other villages formed the first advanced coope-rative, that is, Jianming Agricultural, Forestry, and Animal Hus-bandry Production Cooperative. In Socialist Upsurge in China’s

Countryside (1957), Mao Zedong highly praised the Three-Don-key-Legs Poor Cooperative as “the image of the whole country.”

However, the Communist Party leadership realized that only by organizing cooperatives could it extract surplus value from

thousands of small peasants and lay the foundation for natio-nal industrialization. In the official discourse, the Communist Party’s general line and task in the transitional period to sociali-

sm was gradually to realize the socialist industrialization of the country and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handi-crafts, and capitalist industry and commerce.

In February 1953, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) formally adopted the Resolution on Mutu-

al Aid and Cooperation in Agricultural Production, and the ope-ration of primary agricultural production cooperatives began on a general trial basis throughout the country. Afterward, the CPC

Central Committee put forward a plan to develop agricultural production cooperatives from more than 14,000 to 35,800 from winter 1953 to spring 1954. By the end of 1954, the number of

agricultural cooperatives had grown to 100,000. The propor-



154

tion of peasant households participating in mutual aid groups

rose from 10.7 percent in 1950 to 39.9 percent and 58.3 percent in 1952 and 1954, respectively. The share of the cooperative economy in the national economy also rose from 1.5 percent in

1952 to 2.5 percent in 1953 and 4.8 percent in 1954.4

In December 1953, the CPC Central Committee adopted the

Decision on the Development of Agricultural Production Coope-ratives, which called for the full promotion of agricultural produ-ction cooperation, supply and marketing cooperation, and credit

cooperation as three forms of socialist transformation of the small peasant economy to be carried out simultaneously. By the end of 1955, the number of primary agricultural production cooperatives had grown to 670,000. By the end of 1956, the number of peasants

participating in cooperatives had soared to 96.3 percent of all pe-asants, 87.8 percent of whom were in advanced cooperatives with full collective ownership. In March 1958, the Political Bureau of

the CPC Central Committee adopted the Opinion on Appropria-tely Merging Small Agricultural Cooperatives into Large Coope-ratives. The Opinion states: “To meet the needs of agricultural

production and the cultural revolution, it is necessary to syste-matically and appropriately merge small agricultural cooperatives into large cooperatives where conditions exist.”

In April 1958, twenty-seven small agricultural cooperatives

in four townships of Suiping County, Henan Province, with about 6,500 households and 30,000 people, decided to merge to form a large cooperative, which was renamed the “Chaya Mountain

Large Cooperative” (嵖岈山大社). The collective later changed its name to the “Chaya Satellite Collective Farm.” In May of the same year, in terms of farm management and distribution form,

the scale of the Cooperative was recognized as higher than the Soviet Union’s collective farm and the Paris Commune, so it was renamed to Chaya Satellite People’s Commune. On July 1, 1958, in the third issue of Red Flag Magazine, there was an article titled,



4 National Bureau of Statistics of China, The Great Decade—Statistics on the Economic

and Cultural Achievements of the People’s Republic of China (Beijing: People’s Publishing

House, 1959).



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“A Brand-New Society, A Brand-New People,” which proposed

“to turn a cooperative into both an agricultural and industrial cooperative grassroots organizational unit, and practically a Pe-ople’s Commune combining agriculture and industry.” This was

the first time the term “People’s Commune” was mentioned in the official press. Later, on September 1, 1958, the seventh issue of Red Flag Magazine published “A Brief Introduction to the Chaya

Satellite People’s Commune in Suiping County, Henan Province.”

In 1956, Qiliying (七里营) in Xinxiang County, Henan Pro-vince, was designated as a pilot project for agricultural coopera-tization, and in July 1958, the twenty-six advanced cooperatives

in Qiliying were merged to form the Qiliying Large Cooperative. It was suggested to call it a communist commune because Karl Marx and Frederick Engels had repeatedly spoken of the “Paris

Commune.” Echoing the articles about communes in the Red Flag Magazine, local people thought that “People’s Commune” was a good name for it. On August 1, 1958, Qiliying Large Cooperative

adopted the name of “Qiliying People’s Commune” for the first time in administrative documents. On August 6, Mao Zedong visited Qiliying People’s Commune and said: “It seems that ‘Pe-ople’s Commune’ is a good name, including workers, peasants,

soldiers, scholars, and merchants, as well as managing producti-on, life, and power.” He also summarized the characteristics of “People’s Commune” as “one, it is big (in terms of scale), two, it

is public (in terms of public ownership).”

On August 29, 1958, the CPC Central Committee adopted the Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on the Establi-shment of People’s Communes in Rural Areas. There emerged a people’s communalization movement boom. There were more

than 740,000 agricultural production cooperatives nationwide that were reorganized into more than 26,000 People’s Com-munes, with 120 million households—or more than 99 percent

of the country’s total rural population—participating in the communes.5 China adopted a military-style organization and



5 “Circular on the Separation of Government and Society and the Establishment of Township

Governments,” Communist Party of China News Network, China Reform Information

Center, October 12, 1983, reformdata.org.



156

collectivization of labor and life. Many irrigation and mecha-

nization projects aimed at increasing agricultural production were carried out during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962).

In the next few years, adjustments were made to handle the problems of extreme surplus extraction, exaggeration of results, vanity of high yields, hunger, and disasters. In 1961, the Regulati-

ons on the Work of Rural People’s Communes were implemented, establishing a three-tiered ownership and responsibility system. The three levels were the commune, the production brigade, and

the production team, with the team as the basic unit. Commune members participated in collective production work and were paid according to the work-points they gained. Members could also cultivate a small plot of land for subsistence farming and

run a small number of family sideline businesses. The num-ber of People’s Communes soon increased from about 24,000 to 74,000 because the scale of a commune was downsized and

it also allowed peasants to have relatively reasonable autonomy over family consumption. Later, during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the People’s Communes would become the main

rural political organization, with an estimated 74,000–92,000 People’s Communes in the countryside.

In August 1963, Dazhai (大寨) Village in Xiyang County, Shanxi Province, suffered a once in a century flood. Relying on

the strength of the collective to rebuild their homes, it completed the grain requisition task of 120,000 kilograms ordered from the central government: an average of 1,500 kilograms per household,

and 200 kilograms per capita of rations for a villager. In the same year, the peasants transitioned from the basic accounting unit of the production team to the production brigade.6 It meant a village was

upgraded to a higher level of production unit. In 1964, a nationwide “Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture Campaign” was launched.

In 1966, there was a shift of leadership in the CPC. Mao Ze-dong issued the “May 7 Instruction,” calling for “all walks of life

throughout the country to become ‘one big school’ ‘learning from



6 Yue Congxin, “The Agricultural Learning from Dazhai Campaign and Its Re-evaluation,”

Party History and Literature Collection, no.10 (2012).



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



the world,’” “to learn politics, military affairs, and culture, and to

engage in agricultural and sideline production.” The “big school” can be interpreted as a metaphor for the People’s Commune.7 Mao had high praise for the Dazhai experience of mass mobilization

and self-reliance, and Chen Yonggui—the CPC secretary of Dazhai village—was promoted to be a member of the CPC Politburo from 1969 to 1977 and vice premier of China from 1975 to 1980.

The Learning from Dazhai in Agriculture Campaign lasted for nearly sixteen years. Mechanized agriculture was promoted to increase grain production. Between 1957 and 1980, the total area of land undergoing mechanized cultivation increased by over 15

times, accounting for 42 percent of the total cultivated land. In 1957, there were 544 small hydropower stations for agricultural use nationwide; between 1957 and 1980, the number increased to

79,775, a more than 140-fold increase. The average annual growth rate of grain output between 1962 and 1980 was 4.3 percent. This was higher than both the 3.58 percent increase in the quasi-col-

lectivization period of 1953–1957 and the 1.86 percent increase under the decentralized system of operation of 1981–2001.8

Over two decades, forty million educated youth were sent to the countryside in three waves (1968–1969, 1970–1973, 1974–

1976), in part to deal with the problem of insufficient employment in the cities.9 Alongside millions of local peasants, the urban youth sent to People’s Communes contributed their labor power to agri-

cultural production, mechanization, and village industrialization.

However, with the Reform of 1978, the Central Government gradually affirmed various forms of household contract responsi-

bility systems that were emerging in the countryside. The system meant that a village committee has land ownership over arable land, housing land, and collective construction land. Meanwhile, a



7 “Mao Zedong issued the ‘May 7 Instructions,’” News of the Communist Party of China, n.d.,

cpc.people.com.cn.

8 Old Field, “Discussion of the People’s Commune—20 Years after the Dissolution of the

People’s Commune,” March 25, 2021, mzfxw.com.

9 Sit Tsui et al., “Rural Communities and Economic Crises in Modern China,” Monthly

Review 70, no. 4 (September 2018): 35–51.



158

peasant household has the right to a land contract and the right of

land management, as well as the right to access land for housing.

In 1983, the State Council issued the “Circular on the Establi-shment of Township Governments Separated from Communes”

and, by 1985, more than 92,000 townships had been established out of 56,000 People’s Communes, and more than 820,000 village committees had been established out of more than 540,000 pro-

duction brigades, thus practically abolishing the People’s Com-mune as a political institution.10 It meant that in rural areas the establishment of the township government played an administra-tive role, meanwhile, villagers’ collectives acted as the grassro-

ots self-governance organization of peasant households and had ownership over land property. In other words, the People’s Com-mune, which practiced a system of integrating administrative

units with economic entities and a militia, was dissolved.



The Government’s Return to Collectivism



The People’s Commune system officially lasted twenty-five ye-ars in rural China, and the actual nationwide implementation lasted about seventeen years. This unique form of political and

economic organization of peasants, integrated into the state ad-ministrative structure, has mostly ceased to exist in the past forty years after the Reform policy was launched.

After adopting the open-door Reform policy, China imple-mented speedy urbanization and export-oriented industrializa-tion. In parallel, there were also changes in the rural land polici-

es. Since 1983, China has adopted the household responsibility system, which allows an individual peasant household to have the right to land use. Now, in China, there are more than 1.5 billion mu of household contracted farmland, involving nearly 200 mil-

lion peasant households. The first round of land contracting was from 1983 to 1997, and the second round was began in 1997 and extends to 2027. According to the Nineteenth National Congress



10 “Circular on the Separation of Government and Society and the Establishment of Township

Governments.”



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of the CPC in 2017, the second round of land contracting will be

extended for another thirty years, from 2027 to 2058.11

Under the Household Responsibility System, while the village collective by constitution has land ownership, its power of mass

mobilizing in terms of control over common property has been weakened. There are complexities and tensions over land rights, both on paper and in reality. In 1993, the Central Committee of

the CPC and the State Council stated that, according to the prin-ciple of “great stability and small adjustment,” there would be no land redistribution within villages even though there are changes in the population. Yet, the village collective can make small adju-

stments to land relocation in specific contexts, with the consent of more than two-thirds of the villagers and with the approval of the township government and the county government.

Yang Decai, a member of the National Committee of the

Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, pointed out that the stoppage of land redistribution within villages has led to a gradual increase in the number of new landless population, such as new family members born after 1995, divorced women,

and women married to people in other villages. His research found that new landless peasants in some villages accounted for nearly one quarter of the total population in the villages.12

Another question is the phenomenon of private land use transfers, which is prone to conflicts and disputes. Early in 1988, the National People’s Congress amended the constitution

with provisions that the right of land use can be legally transfer-red. In 2016, the State Council issued a document on the sepa-ration of rural land rights: land ownership, contracting rights, and operation rights. It implies that rural land is owned by the

village collective, and it cannot be sold or illegally transferred. Peasant households can transfer the land operation rights in the form of subcontracting, leasing, swapping, and cooperation.



11 Yu Jingxian, “Long-Term Unchanged Land Contract Relationship Is a Major Declaration

(Policy Interpretation),” People’s Daily, November 29, 2019.

12 Zhou Huaizong, “Extension of Land Contracts Requires Improvement of Supporting

Policies,” Nanjing University News, March 4, 2024.



160

Land transfer in rural areas across the country has accelerated

steeply. According to the China Rural Policy and Reform Sta-tistics Annual Report, as of 2022, the total area of land with operation rights transferred was 576 million mu, accounting for

36.73 percent of the national area of household contracted arable land; the number of peasant households who conducted transfer of land operation rights was about 76.8 million, accounting for 34.8 percent of the total number of peasant households.13

Over the past two decades, in the face of rural exodus, land

conflicts, and even the disintegration of local communities, the central government has allocated a lot of funds to the improve-ment of infrastructure through the rural revitalization and the poverty alleviation schemes. In recent years, the official policy has

once again emphasized the importance of the collective economy.

As the local situation is often much more complex than what the official policies can cover, we find that there are still many

forms of village ownership and operation of social property in diverse forms. There are even some exceptional cases with co-llectively organized forms of production remaining outside the

Household Responsibility System. In such cases, production on the land is the responsibility of the village collective rather than of individual households. This more closely resembles the earlier People’s Communes and is the focus of the discussion below.

It is worth pointing out how contemporary official policy is once again emphasizing collective production. Over the past decade, the term “collective economy” has frequently appeared in

official documents. In 2017, the report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the CPC stated that the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy should “deepen the reform of the collecti-

ve property rights system in rural areas, safeguard the property rights and interests of peasants, and strengthen the collective economy.” In February 2022, the “Central Document No. 1—Sta-ges of Reform of Rural Collective Property Rights System” was

promulgated. It stated that about 960,000 organizations at the



13 Zhang Yunhua, “Discussion on the Formation Mechanism of Rural Land Transfer Prices,”

Rural Work Newsletter, November 6, 2024.



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



township, village, and team levels were registered with the Mini-

stry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and received the Certificate of Registration of Rural Collective Economic Organizations. The rural collective economic organizations had a total membership

of nine hundred million, while rural collective assets amounted to RMB 7.7 trillion, and collective land and other resources amo-unted to 6.55 billion mu (or about 1 billion acres).14

In June 2024, the Law of the PRC on Rural Collective Economic Organizations was adopted at the tenth meeting of the Standing Committee of the Fourteenth National People’s Congress. The law reaffirms collective ownership of land, confirming that it is not a

private good for sale or transfer. It formally legalizes the creati-on of rural economy collective organizations based on collective ownership of land resources, and states that “property collectively

owned by members of rural collective economic organizations is protected by law, and no organization or individual may approp-riate, misappropriate, retain, loot, privately divide or destroy it.”15

What the term “collective” on paper means may vary accor-ding to specific, real-world contexts. Moreover, how different “rural economic collective organizations” actually operate and function requires extensive research. However, the government’s

pro-collective policies over the past ten years indicate that it is trying to address the problems of privatization of land resources, marketization, monetization, social polarization, and the risk of

disintegration of rural societies since the Reform of 1979.



Three Collective Communities in Rural China



In what follows, we examine three rural communities in different parts of China. We have visited them to try to learn on the ground how the community members or the local cadres live and think. The

three communities have some features in common. Zhoujiazhuang



14 Department of Policy and Reform, “Central Document No.1 Released: Stages of Rural

Collective Property Rights System Reform,” Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

of China, March 9, 2022, zcggs.moa.gov.cn.

15 “Law of the People’s Republic of China on Rural Collective Economic Organizations,”

Xinhua, June 29, 2024.



162

and Yakou call themselves a People’s Commune and a commune,

respectively, and Zhanqi a village collective. They all operate within that tradition. Further, beyond retaining collective land ownership, they also practice economic planning and commune management,

while looking after the social welfare of all members.

Zhoujiazhuang (Zhou Clan) Township in Jinzhou City, Hebei province, is three hours’ drive south of Beijing. Zhoujiazhuang

is the only township in the country to implement a township--level accounting management system, and it is well known as “the Last People’s Commune” in China, though nominally, it is a cooperative. Since the establishment of the cooperative in 1954,

Zhoujiazhuang has persisted in the collective cultivation of land, rather than allocating land on a household basis. This involves employing work-points and year-end dividend management. The

commune has ten production brigades, with about three thou-sand households and an overall population of twelve thousand.16

Yakou (Cliff Edge) Village Commune in Zhongshan City,

Guangdong province, is in the south, at the Pearl River Delta. Only one hour’s drive from Macau and Hong Kong, it is along a well-developed transportation network corridor, having access to the Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway, the Guangzhou-Zhuhai Interci-

ty Light Railway, and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Highway. Yakou does not call itself a People’s Commune, but simply a commune. In the years since 1978, the village’s land has not been allocated

to households and is still farmed by production teams based on work-points. There are eight village groups and thirteen producti-on teams, with around 850 households and a population of 3,500.

Zhanqi (Battle Flag) Village, in Chengdu City, Sichuan Pro-vince, is in southwest China. It is situated in an environmentally rich region that is home to wild pandas and is referred to as the “Heavenly World” because of its fertile soil. The township is home

to the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, a still-functioning project over two thousand years old, and is a World Heritage Site. Zhanqi Village has an arable land area of 5,430 mu and has jurisdiction



16 Lau Kin Chi, “Revisiting Collectivism and Rural Governance in China: The Singularity of

the Zhoujiazhuang People’s Commune,” Monthly Review 72, no. 5 (October 2020): 32–34.



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over sixteen village groups, around 4,500 people. Since 2000, the

village has eliminated its Household Responsibility System in fa-vor of collective management of land resources for community building. In February 2018, CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping

visited the village to inspect the work of rural revitalization. He praised the project, saying: “The Battle Flag is fluttering, true to its name.” Since then, Zhanqi Village has been promoted as one

of the best examples of rural revitalization due to its defense of the collective economy.

The three communities have worked hard to maintain com-munal governance. The challenges they face include those of

collectively controlling and managing common resources, land property, allocation of labor power, producing surplus food, and managing revenue for social distribution. However, with the ad-

vantages that come from collective mobilization of resources, they have been well positioned to strategize their development goals and tackle problems of food sovereignty, pollution, poverty,

unemployment, and equity. The communities have revived com-munal traditions and practices, and they have realized the need to build local sufficiency, local networks, and local governance for collective survival and welfare.

Next, we will examine how they struggle for food sovereignty at the grassroots level by centering agriculture, reorganizing the labor force, and turning toward agroecological agriculture. We

will also see how they deal with polluting industries, and turn to seeking revenue from land rent, ecotourism, and educational programs to deal with public expenditures and improvement of

livelihood, like housing, road construction, local job opportuni-ties, and medical insurance.



Food Sovereignty at the Community Level



In early March 2025, we visited Yakou Village Commune. It has a unique landscape, with 1,700 mu of paddy fields as well as 20,000

mu of fishponds, all of it surrounded by the highways and high--rise buildings of south China’s hyper-developed coastal areas.



164

As our visit occurred during the spring sowing season, tra-

ctors were plowing the fields and rice seedlings were sprouting. Amidst the mechanized labor, peasants were working together in the fields. At around 11 am, we chatted with a group of el-

derly women who had finished the task of weeding and clearing the corners of fields. They were cleaning their hoes and washing their hands. They told us that they still practiced the work-point

system. They worked from 8 am until 11 am, broke to have lunch at home, then resumed work at 1 pm to 4 pm. In busy periods, they could earn eighty work-points each day.

The work-points would be calculated at the year’s end to determine their monetary value, depending on the income of the production team. We were told that each work-point was roughly equivalent to RMB 12. Previously, when the women were

young, they would work in restaurants or factories. Now they can still work the land, if that is their choice. The commune accepts anyone who chooses to work, so employment is guaranteed. One

woman said, “I am over 60 years old, but there is no retirement for a peasant!” She grinned, proud of her peasant status. She then got on her electric scooter and headed for home on the country road.

Why did Yakou Village decide to hold on to the commune

system? Longtime village leader Uncle Man responded to our question with a determined voice. “I am a communist,” he said. Uncle Man, whose full name is Lu Hanman, was the CPC villa-

ge secretary in Yakou Village for thirty-seven years—until 2011, when he retired at the age of 73. Called the “barefoot village secretary” because he always worked in the fields with bare feet,

he has insisted on protecting farming for food, and managed to obtain permission from the authorities to reclaim 40,000 mu of delta land in 2002 for agriculture. He argues that collectivized

farming protects “the weak” and guarantees local food security.

When the pressure to implement the Household Responsibility System came to the village in 1979, the villagers under Uncle Man’s leadership reached a consensus not to divide up the land use among

individual households. The reason was practical. From the early 1980s to 2006 (when the agricultural tariffs were formally abolished),



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each laborer was required to pay agricultural tax in the form of more

than 600 kilograms of grain per year, as well as meat, egg products, and edible oil. The practical problem was that there was a serious labor shortage in the village. As Yakou Village is close to Hong Kong

and Macao, many young people have left the village or migrated to work, do business, or run factories. Most of the people left behind are the elderly, women, and children. That meant that if Yakou Vil-

lage had adopted the Household Responsibility System, it would have been difficult for households without young and strong members to pay the agricultural tariffs. In 1979, after discussions, they decided to continue with collective agricultural production through the work-

-point system. This not only solved the tax issue but also maintained the village’s self-sufficiency through collective grain production. To this day, Yakou calls itself the Yakou Village Commune.

The solution was to implement “One village, two systems”: those who are young and strong can go to the city to work, whi-le those who stay behind participate in agricultural production.

The village committee organizes them into thirteen production teams, collectively growing rice and distributing it according to their work. They are able to maintain the dignity of laborers with a decent income. In 2010, for example, the net income from rice

cultivation was RMB 2.51 million, and the total income from land leasing business was RMB 15 million, while the total income distributed to agricultural laborers amounted to RMB 6 million,

or RMB 17,000 per capita per year.

Additionally, Yakou has been very careful to protect the na-tural environment. Today, they do not accept polluting industries,

even if they are highly profitable. In the mid-1970s, the village had a machinery industry. Later, between 1979 and 1981, they intro-duced ten foreign-funded factories to carry out the processing of imported materials with more than two thousand workers.

The capital, equipment, and technology all belonged to outsiders. Foreign businesspeople used local cheap land, labor, and energy to engage in production, process the products, and export them

to the international market. However, the wealth earned largely remained in the hands of the foreign businesses, while industrial



166

waste, wastewater, exhaust gas, and garbage polluted the land

and the groundwater, resulting in the gradual disappearance of certain local species, the withering of grass and trees, and the undermining of the living environment.

Therefore, Yakou gave up industrial development in the mid--1980s, preferring to sacrifice profit for the sake of protecting the environment. Since then, Yakou has gradually moved toward ecolo-

gical transformation, while ecological paddy landscapes and healthy farm products form the basis of new ecological tourism projects.

In the case of Zhoujiazhuang, the People’s Commune system has remained intact up to the present. The role of the local leader

Lei Jinhe, like Lu Manhan in Yakou Village, was paramount. At the time the Reform was being implemented, Zhoujiazhuang Pe-ople’s Commune Party Secretary Lei Jinhe, a veteran Communist

militant since the Anti-Japanese War of the 1940s, wanted to maintain the People’s Commune system, considering it superior. On November 30, 1980, Zhoujiazhuang People’s Commune, with

ten production brigades, held a referendum, in which the majori-ty of the community’s 3,055 households voted not to divide the farmland and other collective property.

A document in the Zhoujiazhuang People’s Commune Mu-

seum shows that 274 households of the first production briga-de signed and put their red fingerprints on the petition letter refusing to divide up the farmland. This document, now in a

local museum, has not been propagated by mainstream media like the fingerprint contract of eighteen peasants in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang County, Anhui Province, who were hailed as

the pioneers for dividing up farmland and cultivating it by indi-vidual households. To keep a low profile, Zhoujiazhuang People’s Commune changed its name to a “Cooperative” in 1984, but it has retained the form and substance of People’s Commune and

its socialist collective economic system.17

The undivided farmland is worked by ten production briga-des. Every year, the brigades assess the amount of staple foods,



17 Liu Guoyun, Zhoujiazhuang: The Miracle of Rural China (Wuhan: Hebei People’s

Publishing House, 2016).



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



including wheat, millet, and other food items, that are required

by the brigade households. Sufficient land is set aside to cultivate for the needs of the commune members. The remaining land is put into various agricultural projects, such as growing fruits

and vegetables, cultivating seeds for wheat producers, harvesting timber, or running a dairy farm.

We have visited Zhoujiazhuang over ten times since 2011.

Agriculture remains a core concern for this de facto People’s Commune. They are currently undergoing a transition to gre-en agriculture and the use of organic fertilizers. They have also registered the “Zhoujiazhuang People’s Commune” brand name

for agricultural products such as flour, millet, powdered milk, and sweet potato vermicelli. In 2024, even though the price of agricultural products plummeted nationwide, Zhoujiazhuang

People’s Commune was able to weather this situation and retain members’ incomes because they had applied the principle of “re-taining accumulation in years of abundance and subsidizing in

years of arrears.” Overall, their prioritization of agriculture has served as a bedrock for maintaining self-sufficiency and local food sovereignty.

By contrast, Zhanqi Village in south China adopted the Ho-usehold Responsibility System in 1978. In the mid-1990s, its five collective enterprises closed one after another. In 1994, Zhanqi Village adopted the shareholding system to restructure its machi-

ne and brick factory, spicy bean sauce factory, brewery, flour mill, and composite fertilizer factory. These five enterprises became subordinate entities under a joint-stock cooperative society with

a Board of Directors and Supervisory Board. This arrangement did not work well. Yang Mingxue, a member of the Discipline Inspection Committee of Zhanqi Village, described the problems as follows: “Enterprise managers were much less motivated in the

absence of [individual] ownership incentives. Long-term mana-gement also led to a lack of separation between public and pri-vate interests and the loss of a large number of collective assets.

Facing the background of an increasingly competitive market environment, enterprise efficiency declined.”



168

In response, Gao Demin, co-general secretary of the CPC in

Zhanqi Village, led a group of cadres in 2003 to visit Huaxi Villa-ge, Nanjie Village, and Liuzhuang Village, which were regarded as advanced collective economic villages in the New Era. There

he learned that the economic strength of the village collective economy did not generally stem from the subdivision of land management but from the land resources being integrated under the village collective with unified management and operation.18

Upon returning from this research trip, the cadres lobbied

each villager, one after another, asking them to donate a plot of roughly two hundred square meters to the collective, in return for the collective paying all their agricultural tariffs. Secretary Gao explained to the villagers that this was beneficial to both

the village collective and the individual peasants. He argued that large-scale planting was conducive to improving agricultural pro-duction, villagers could reduce their work burden, and it would

be easier to obtain investment from local or foreign enterprises.

Since then, the land under collective management has grown. By 2003, they had amassed around 100 mu of land under collecti-

ve management. Then, in 2006, under the government policy of promoting a new socialist countryside, they got funding to acquire 500 mu of cultivated land. Recently, they have begun cooperating with other villages in agricultural activities.

Today, the registered population of Zhanqi Village is more than 4,400 people. They have around 2,000 mu dedicated to grain production. In the Spring Festival in 2025, the village committee

gave each villager a bonus food package: “One bag of rice (5 kilo-grams), 2 packs of noodles (kilograms), a bottle of edible oil (900 milliliters), 1 packet of dumplings, and 2 boxes of sauce.” Rice has

always come first, the people of Zhanqi Village emphasize that they are very proud of producing rice by themselves.

In December 2024, we interviewed Gao Demin, who was deeply concerned about food security, even though there was no

immediate problem of hunger or climate crisis. He said:



18 Dong Xiaodan, Zhanqi Village Over Fifty Years: The Micro-foundation of Chinese De-

dependency (London: Palgrave MacMillian, 2024).



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



Zhanqi Village implements food storage, which fills our rice

bowls with our self-grown food. That way, when we have staple

food in our hands, we don’t panic. For a human being, the priority

is to survive; we don’t necessarily need a mobile phone, we don’t

necessarily need to live in a multistorey building, but we cannot

not consume food. Even though China has achieved urbanization,

the countryside must be preserved. The main role of rural society

is to be able to solve the food problem.



Currently, Zhanqi Village has cooperated with neighbo-ring villages to build a 10,000-mu modern grain production park (special economic zone designated by local governments

to attract foreign investors), develop high-quality farmland, and cover the agricultural industry chain, such as the for-mation of nursery, planting, drying, and storage, and even

e-commerce sales to enhance value-added agricultural/indu-strial products, as well as ecotourism, education programs, and research activities. Recently, the village has built a grain

drying and storage center, which can dry 90 tons of grain per day and store up to 600 tons. It serves not only the Zhanqi area but also the surrounding villages and communities.19 Gao remarked, “I just want everyone to have an awareness of the

danger of a food crisis. I took the lead and paid the first RMB 1,000 for the food storage center, that’s over 200 kgs of rice.”

Since 2012, Zhanqi Village has also addressed the problem of industrial pollution. They took the initiative to give up “scattered and chaotic” enterprises, closing or relocating five polluting en-

terprises: a compound fertilizer factory (moved), a brick factory (closed), a gravel factory (moved), a prefabrication factory (clo-sed), and a foundry (moved). These closures paved the way for a

transition to agroecology and for ecotourism.



19 Peng Xiangping, “Paying Tribute to Advanced Models; Lu Xinyu, the First Secretary of

Zanqi Village: Let the Gap Between the Urban and Rural Areas Become Smaller and

Smaller, and the Villagers Live Better,” Red Star News, February 6, 2024, 163.com.



170

Land Revenues for Public Welfare



Each of the three rural communities discussed above relies on the

land economy, based on land rent, in a diversified way. They have collective ownership of land and collective control of land use, while agriculture remains a key activity. However, income from

agricultural production is low, so the communities need other revenues to cover social welfare expenses. Hence, they increase revenue through various other forms of land use, such as buil-

ding factories for industry, creating storage spaces for logistics, developing commercial complexes or training centers, or leasing and even selling land.

Both Yakou Village Commune and Zhanqi Village tried he-

avy industries but sensibly gave them up later, finding the indu-stries to be too polluting. Zhoujiazhuang ran valve factories quite successfully for some years. However, since 2011, the factories

have been closed in the face of competition from small factories in neighboring towns. To keep up its revenue, Zhoujiazhuang turned to several other modes of land use. The old valve factories

were turned into a modern industrial park for lease to enterprises; it built storage facilities for lease to logistics companies; it leased one brigade’s land to an agricultural corporation from Hong Kong that grows vegetables; it turned another brigade’s land into an

orchard for ecotourism.

The commune’s farmland was then redistributed among the production brigades. To deal with the growing population and to

avoid turning more farmland into residential plots, Zhoujiazhu-ang allocated a zone in 2015 to build high-rise residential blocks with units for commune members to buy and own. The ground

floor units are for commercial businesses, which the commune does not sell but leases. Ecotourism under the catchphrase “The Last People’s Commune in China” has generated much income. Zhoujiazhuang also organizes “Red Education” training programs

that have brought in handsome sums.

As early as 1982, Zhoujiazhuang began a unified plan provi-ding free housing for each household. Each household is entitled



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



to a residential plot of about two hundred square meters to build

a two-story house with a single gated private entrance. There is also public expenditure for improving infrastructure. All power facilities have been renovated to a high standard; all the streets

and alleys have been cemented; all streetlamps have been re-newed; all drinking water pipes have been replaced; all latrines have been renovated; and all households have been provided with

natural gas. Further, the government has accredited each of the ten production teams as a “beautiful village” in Hebei Province.

This People’s Commune is proud of the social welfare it pro-vides to all members, including a per capita living allowance of

RMB 500, an electricity subsidy of RMB 100, free installation of running water, and free medical insurance. In 2024, the total amount spent on social welfare was more than RMB 45 million.

The medical insurance premium was increased to RMB 400 per person per year, and medical expenses, which amounted to nearly RMB 6 million, were paid in full by the commune.

In addition to the new rural social pension provided by the state, the Zhoujiazhuang commune grants a monthly allowance to those over 60 who have no children. The commune also pays for their living expenses, sends someone to care for them when

they are sick, and pays for their medical and funeral expenses. Additionally, the commune pays for living expenses for disabled people who have lost the ability to work. Those disabled due to

work injuries are given a subsidy of RMB 3,000 per year. Zhou-jiazhuang has kindergartens, elementary schools, middle scho-ols, and high schools. There is a health center in the township

and a health clinic for each production brigade. In addition, the commune takes charge of weddings and funerals to promote a modest standard for such rituals, thereby avoiding the risk of

wealth comparison and extravagant spending.

If Zhoujiazhuang has amassed land rent by leasing land for logistics, agriculture, industries, and commercial businesses, a similar situation prevails in Zhanqi Village. Since the 2000s,

Zhanqi Village has begun separating collective ownership and asset management rights: the village recovered all collective pro-



172

perty rights through the liquidation of capital, fixed assets, and

intangible assets of the local enterprises. For example, from 2003 to 2005, the village reformed the bean curd factory, brick factory, composite fertilizer factory, flour mill, and brewery. It paid RMB

4.2 million to the five enterprise managers and employees, which accounted for 20 percent of the shares. In this way, the village once again became the sole proprietor.

In 2011, Zhanqi Village completed the registration of the membership of the collective economic organizations, concen-trated all arable land, re-established the right to issue certificates of communal membership with rights of land use, and assessed

the value of the operating assets of the collective economy. It compared these assets with the headcount and distributed sha-res to each member. In the process of liquidation, the land was

divided into three categories: agricultural land, which was valued at RMB 2,150 per mu; construction land, valued at RMB 46,000 per mu (the price of state-owned land acquisition); and other

unutilized lands (such as barren land, roads, etc.), valued at RMB 2,150 per mu. They also registered a new company, Chengdu Jifeng Investment Management, to deal with collective assets and liquidation programs. The villagers designed a mechanism

of benefit distribution: 50 percent goes to public accumulation and reproduction, 30 percent goes to public services and welfare undertakings, such as social management, and 20 percent goes

to the villagers’ share of dividends.

How does Zhanqi Village evaluate its experience of adopting the land economy? The leadership generally contends that “it is

best to adopt a lease-based approach for collective public assets,” since that clarifies the relationship between investor, owner, and operator, and emphasizes that the operator is the “cattle herder.” In their current arrangement, the village collective is the sole

landowner and uses land rent for securing communal livelihood.

In 2007, Zhanqi Village began comprehensive collective land management, making use of 208 mu of collective construction land

to get an investment of RMB 98 million from the Chengdu Small City Investment Company. It received gross land revenue of RMB 130



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



million from this project. After using RMB 115 million to pay off the

loan and interests, the village put the remaining RMB 15 million into residential community buildings and infrastructure construction.

In recent years, the village has benefited from ecotourism and educational programs. It built a complex where eighteen

different rural arts and handicrafts are practiced, including wine making, edible oil extraction, bean paste and cotton shoe manu-facture, and other traditional skills and arts. The Tianfu Agricul-tural Museum has been established. A 500-meter “snack street”

offers regional food from all over Sichuan province. The Tianfu Zhanqi Hotel was built to accommodate the area’s booming to-urism. Moreover, the Sichuan Zhanqi Rural Revitalization Tra-

ining Institute can accommodate two thousand people for tra-ining and learning about the experiences of rural revitalization.

In 2015, Zhanqi Village developed a “collective economic

organization with members identification approach,” identifying 1,704 people as members of the collective economic organization. They sold the right of land use of 13,447 mu of unused collective construction land at a price of RMB 525,000 per mu to Sichuan

Maigao Tourism Company (with usage rights lasting forty years). The village thus obtained a revenue of RMB 7.06 million.

In 2024, the collective assets of Zhanqi Village amounted to RMB 119.68 million, and the collective economic income was RMB 7.3 million. There were eleven catering units, eleven lodging units,

and eight productive enterprises, with a total output value of about RMB 300 million, offering employment to more than 1,200 people and paying taxes of more than RMB 3 million. They organized

training programs for the Communist Party and government that yielded more than RMB 1.5 million. They also organized an educa-tional “handcraft garden,” which engaged primary and secondary school students in over than 600 classes with more than 30,000

people, and earned an income of more than RMB 400,000.20



20 Yan Bihua, “Zhanqi Village: Walking in the Forefront, Starting a Good Demonstration,”

People’s Life Weekly, June 12, 2023; Tianfu Xindu, “A New Year’s Custom in Zhanqi Village:

Piles of New Year’s Goods Make a Mountain of Happiness!,” The Paper, January 25, 2025,

thepaper.cn.



174

In the case of Yakou Village, its location within the develo-

pment zone of Southern China makes it susceptible to pressures not just to lease land, but also to sell it. In 2002, Yakou completed its land reclamation project. According to Uncle Man, there was a

risk that assets would be controlled by a minority of village leaders who might pursue immediate returns. Hence, Uncle Man thought it would be a better strategy to implement a shareholding system

so that individual members have a say in the collective assets. That was even before the government began its policy to promote shareholding among villagers. With this in mind, the commune put 20,000 mu of reclaimed land into a shareholding scheme. Each

village member was given a share of 5.5 mu, and the Yakou Villa-gers’ Land Share Foundation was set up. This organization unified management, while collecting rent and paying annual dividends

to each shareholder. Villagers who do not participate in collective production and run their businesses can also get a share.

In 2006, Yakou Village implemented a second shareholding

scheme. Two years later, about 92 percent of shareholders voted to sell 11,700 mu of land at RMB 50,000 per mu to the Zhongshan City Land Reserve Center in one go. The price of RMB 540 mil-lion would cover the cost of social security and health insurance

for the whole village, and each villager would get RMB 142,000 in cash. Villagers were shocked when, a few years later, they saw that the same piece of land was listed for sale at a starting bid

price of RMB 500,000 per mu. They saw how the market price of land rocketed when arable land was officially and nominally con-verted to construction land during the real estate boom. Thus,

in 2022, when a piece of land of 5,600 mu was proposed to be sold for RMB 360,000, the proposal failed to receive a two-thirds majority approval from the villagers, thanks to the exercise of the

villagers’ rights as shareholders.



The Challenge of Collectivism



China has practiced small peasant farming and village governan-ce for thousands of years. Its dynasties were often overthrown by



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



peasant uprisings whose main grievances were land concentra-

tion, heavy taxation, or foreign invasion. Likewise, the authority and stability of a new dynasty usually depended on implementing land redistribution and tax exemption, which guaranteed people’s

livelihoods and ensured their support in the face of foreign inva-sions. When the PRC was set up, the first significant move was to distribute land to peasants. The state also promoted coopera-

tization to encourage mutual-aid and collective efforts to handle production, irrigation, mechanization, and so on.

The first launching of the People’s Communes during the Great Leap Forward Campaign in 1958 met with peasant resistance and

had to be retracted soon after. The re-imposition of the People’s Communes as an institution during the Cultural Revolution peri-od was carried out with a political and administrative force from

above, from the state. The result was that while the state guaran-teed minimal survival and livelihood needs, including food, health, and education, the surplus value produced by peasants and rural

laborers was extracted to contribute to China’s industrialization.

Bo Yibo, Vice Premier of the PRC in 1979–1983—the

years of the dismantling of the People’s Commune instituti-on—writes in his book, A Review of Some Major Decisions and Events (1991), that the country had to industrialize. It had to ac-

cumulate agricultural surplus for industrial investment, requi-ring some people to make sacrifices. The central government, after repeated discussions, determined that the peasants had

to make such sacrifices and contributions.21

Agricultural collectivization was based on the massive extraction of agricultural surpluses by the state for primitive industrial accumulation. As Wen Tiejun argues, unlike the

West, which developed through colonial plundering overse-as during the fifteenth to early twentieth centuries and then transferred the cost of economic upgrading through a global

regime after the Second World War, China achieved indu-strialization through introvert primitive accumulation in two ways: (1) extracting the surplus value of labor of the whole



21 Bo Yibo, A Review of Some Major Decisions and Events, CPC Central Party School Press, 1991.



176

nation through highly collectivized social organization and

the agricultural surplus through the price scissors between industrial and agricultural products; (2) investment of large--scale labor force into state infrastructure building. In the

second, the labor force resource was capitalized as a substitute for capital scarcity. This whole national mobilization system afforded China the capacity to accomplish the “alarmingly dangerous saltation” of primitive accumulation for industria-

lization without compromising national sovereignty. However, the enormous institutional cost of this atypical development growth had to be borne by all citizens (and often unevenly).22

There have been many studies that look at how much col-lectivization contributed to the country’s industrialization. From 1953 to 1986, the state implemented the policy of unified purcha-

se and marketing, with the scissors price difference between industrial and agricultural products, to extract agricultural surplus for industrial production. It laid the initial foundation for China’s industrial modernization.23 Yan Ruizhen calculated

that the “scissors difference” between the prices of agricultural and industrial products expanded by 44.9 percent from 1955 to 1978. Similarly, according to joint research conducted by the

Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council, the state obtained unequal exchanges of agricultural inputs that amounted to RMB 510 billion from 1954 to 1978.24 In comparison, at the

beginning of the Reform in 1978, China’s entire state-owned industrial fixed assets were only RMB 960 billion. Kong Xian-gzhi calculated that the various contributions made by peasants over sixty years were about RMB 13.7 trillion.25



22 Wen Tiejun, Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development (1949–2020)

(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

23 Yan Ruizhen et al., China’s Price Scissors between Industry and Agriculture (Beijing:

People’s University of China Press, 1988).

24 The General Research Group on Agricultural Inputs, “Agricultural Protection: Current

Situation, Basis and Policy Recommendations,” China Social Science, no. 1 (1996).

25 Kong Xiang-zhi and He An-hua, “On the Contribution of Peasants to the Construction of

New China for 60 Years,” Teaching and Research 43, no. 9 (2009): 5–13.



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Hence, the establishment of People’s Communes as an in-

stitution was highly effective in organizing production and in-creasing productivity, but collectivism imposed from above may not always have been welcomed by the commune members. It

has also resulted in a divide and polarization between urban and rural China. This explains why the Household Responsibility System, which dismantled the People’s Commune system, was

popular and could be claimed by the authorities to be done in compliance with the people’s wishes.

With the 1978 Reform, scattered peasant households became the main agents of production, while some rural collectives were

retained to perform specific services and management functions. While the village communities maintain land ownership accom-panied by the right of land adjustment and rent collection, pea-

sants are entitled to household contract rights, can decide what to produce, and have the right to operational profits.

The demise of the People’s Commune system meant that the

government retreated from the agricultural sector as well as public welfare services such as health and education in the countryside. Those costs are now borne by individual households. Various offi-cial rural institutions, such as credit cooperatives and supply and

marketing cooperatives, have weakened in the following period of speedy urbanization. The four decades of Reform policy in China went hand in hand with the adoption of export-oriented industri-

alization, making the country into a kind of world factory. In the international division of labor, being a semiperipheral country, China sacrifices labor power and natural resources and provides

a part of its surplus value to core countries. The dissolution of the People’s Communes in favor of the Household Responsibility System meant that the countryside acquired more autonomy but

has also become susceptible to market fluctuations in the age of neoliberalism. The displacement of Township and Village Enter-prises has also occurred as a result of the opening of the coastal areas to transnational manufacturing industries. All of this, cou-

pled with the brain and capital drain from the countryside, means that rural society risks disintegration.



178

In recent years, the United States and Europe have imposed

sanctions on China, and in the face of these hostilities, the Chinese government began promoting both domestic consumption and ru-ral revitalization. Revitalizing the countryside has meant reorgani-

zing scattered peasant producers and reactivating rural collectives. All of this takes place against the backdrop of a major step taken in 1998 that fosters local governance and democratic participation.

At that time, the Organization Law of the Villagers’ Committees of the PRC was implemented, with the result that 600,000 Chinese villages directly elect their village chiefs every three years.

Looking back, we can see how millions of Chinese peasants

experienced, first, the phase of communalization that occurred during the three decades following the Revolution, then relati-ve atomization and individuation over the past four decades of

Reform. The effects of these major policy shifts inevitably vary according to specific contexts. The three communities examined in this paper, each with its history and trajectory, are no excepti-

on to this principle. What made them hold on to collective mana-gement practices over the long haul, and how did they do it? Each had a strong, respected local leader committed to communist ideals and principles who demonstrated altruism and dedication,

thereby securing the following of the cadres and villagers around them. It is also important to point out that in all three cases, going against the grain of marketization and liberalization requ-

ired extra efforts on the part of the local communities to insist on pursuing their preferred path. It was only through extensive negotiations among the village stakeholders to agree on the gre-

atest good for both the collective and its members that the many internal contradictions and conflicts could be resolved.

Uncle Man expressed his worries of common goods being

dismantled, which may be taken to represent a widespread sen-timent in the communities we examined. He said, “We have ac-cumulated a large number of land resources and wealth after decades of hard work, but internal and external forces want to

seize and plunder our wealth, which has made it difficult and risky to keep our community.” To avoid these dangers, these three



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Lau Kin Chi and Sit Tsui



rural communities have charted their own paths in defending the

commons for the sake of self-sufficiency and collective survival, particularly in caring for groups who are vulnerable under the logic of the market, who would suffer under a more atomized

system. They are attentive to the problems of wealth disparity and polarization. Collective ownership and management of land resources help to guard against plunder and appropriation by

powerful insiders or outsiders.

In conclusion, we would like to make the following general observation. Forming and maintaining a collective or commune

cannot be run by appealing merely to the economic and mo-netary interests of the members. Individualism and egoism are disruptive, so bonds based on social and interpersonal relation-ships need to be nurtured. When the majority of the collective or

commune’s members can see how individual contributions relate to the public good (which in turn benefits the individuals); when they have initiative, satisfaction, and pride in being a member

of the collective and in contributing their labor; when they see the long-term responsibility to enable future generations to live in an amicable political, economic, social, cultural, and natural environment, then there is hope and vitality in the commune.



180

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