Rage and everything in-between: Reflections on the ISEE-Degrowth Conference in Oslo

--Thoughts

This past week, surrounded by people from all over the world thinking, questioning, resisting, imagining, I felt something shift in me. It was supposed to be a conference but it felt more like stepping into a living, breathing ecosystem of care, conflict, courage, and solidarity. I didn’t spend my holidays passively listening to panels on post-capitalist theories. I spent them feeling. I spent them remembering. I spent them being deeply, painfully, and beautifully alive with others.

We spoke openly, often rawly. I found myself in conversations where I didn’t need to over-explain or justify why Degrowth, Justice, Climate, colonialism, or Grief mattered. People just got it. We were carrying similar questions, similar weights, and for once, I didn't feel alone. There was something liberating about being among strangers who were also seekers. Because we only had a few days, we dropped the filters and hashed stuff out. I'm still holding onto this within me, and trying to bottle it up for whenever I feel upset or dejected by humanity's ongoings.

But alongside that recognition came tension. Real, necessary, and unresolved tension. In several sessions, especially those touching on colonialism and imperialism, I could feel the weight of erasure. The rage, especially from those from the Global Majority, was sharp and justified. Because too often, even within transformative spaces like Degrowth, we reproduce the very hierarchies we claim to resist.

There wasn't enough room made for that rage. There weren’t enough spaces to shout, scream, and truly confront how colonial dynamics continue to shape these conversations. The programme structure, didn’t make enough space for real debate. Many sessions felt rushed, with too little time for questions, responses, or deeper engagement. Conversations that needed space to breathe and to challenge were often constrained or cut short. So, with its time limits, frenzied and packed schedule, limited Q&A with no time or space for debate, many voices were compressed, unanswered, or squeezed into tight margins.

And yet, the rage did come out. It spilled into plenaries, broke through the cracks, demanded to be heard. It reminded us that if Degrowth is to mean anything, it must be Decolonial. It must disrupt imperial economic models, not repackage them in softer language. It must centre those historically and presently most impacted....not just in theory, but in actual decision-making, definitions, and direction.

We must carry that discomfort forward. Into the next conferences, into how we define and imagine Degrowth, into our organising, our work. If we don’t make space for the grief, the fury, the histories that live in our bodies, we will replicate what we say we are trying to undo.

Still, amidst all of this, I felt an overwhelming sense of belonging. Not a perfect space, but a space in motion and a space alive. Not a sanitised or idealised one...but a raw, honest, complicated kind of belonging. I felt seen in my complexity, heard in my uncertainty, challenged in my assumptions. I remembered why I care about this work, and why I can’t do it alone.

Let’s carry that forward. Let’s not polish over the discomfort. Let’s deepen it, sit with it, organise from it.

Because if Degrowth is going to mean anything; it has to be all of this.

--Feedback for the future

• Degrowth must be reimagined through a decolonial lens. Currently, Degrowth leans heavily still on Eurocentric narratives. This creates deep tension and frustration for participants from the Global Majority and racialised communities. If Degrowth is to have global relevance, we can’t just invite Global South scholars and activists into a pre-existing framework. The framework itself must shift. Otherwise, degrowth risks becoming just another imperialist export dressed in green.
• Rage and discomfort need room. Instead of fearing disruption, future conferences should design spaces that allow for it. Anger is not a threat to degrowth but an invitation to dig deeper. If we don’t make space for that rage, we risk silencing the most important truths.
• More accountability is needed. Moving forward, conference organising teams should include and prioritise voices from the Global Majority in planning, structure, and framing. Not just in panels, but in the very bones of the event.
• Informal, relational spaces matter. Some of the most meaningful learning didn’t happen in the official sessions. They happened in the cracks. Future conferences should recognise this and create more space for connection, conversation, and co-thinking outside rigid formats.

Thank you The International Ecological Economics and Degrowth Conference Oslo 2025