How does nonviolent communication relate to degrowth?
Another highlight of the last edition was exploring the relation between NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION and DEGROWTH, where we questioned how we can center our needs to avoid reproducing patterns from capitalist and patriarchal conditioning. While the degrowth scholarship mostly focuses on transformation of the economy system so that it would be centered around fulfilling needs within the means of the planet, the systemic strands of non-violent communication presents a practical tool for overcoming our conditioning and centering needs in our day-to-day lives when approaching ourselves and others. Internal transformations go hand in hand with external transformations.
Reflections from participants in the workshop offered by Tadeas, from Nazemi:
“I knew the concept of nonviolent communication from extinction rebellion, we had talked about nonviolent communication between two people and how to communicate sending me-messages and how to de-escalate interpersonal conflict. At Alt Shift we went beyond personal and interpersonal nonviolent communication, and asked ourselves how nonviolence impacts us on an organisational and systemic level. It moved us into wondering how to bring about the degrowth revolution through nonviolence.”
”Doing this workshop really brought me back to how degrowth has many stepping stones and one is learning how to create communities of care. As agents of change we have the task to value our connections based on transparency, trust and, uncanny to say, vulnerability. There is where we start. There is a language of needs, feelings and emotions that we must relearn to spread a culture of mutual understanding and bonds. These will replace the invisible walls that impede us to properly and proactively collaborate. We need more tools that really enable us to solve conflicts with ourselves, and consequently in relation with others, among groups and towards the wider society.”
“We reflected on the three levels of degrowth, the biophysical, systemic and cultural level, and how it goes beyond an economic system, how it is an all encompassing system and way of being. And that kind of blew my mind, I had never thought about systemic nonviolent communication, what it would look like and how necessary it is. The way we talk and engage with each other, the way we relate to our wider communities and our cultures, and how we imagine societal nonviolence. It made me realize how closely interconnected degrowth and nonviolence are.”
