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View this email in your browser"Localization, in my sense of things, is not a top-down
standardized introduction of doctrinaire methodologies. It invites
us to stay with the openings around us."
– Bayo Akomolafe
We recently had a very dynamic conversation following an online screeningof Closer to Home. This was thanks not only to the wisdom of our panelists,
Bayo Akomolafe, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Cyrus Sutton and Nathalie Kelley,
but also to the questions directed to them by attendees.

Watch full discussion
These critical questions boldly opened up debate around some of thewidely held ideological tenets of the modern global economy. For example:
Question, timestamp 26:45:

Hasn’t globalization delivered scientific advancement, innovation andinvention to the world by connecting us all through digital platforms?
Without globalization, wouldn’t communities the world over be trappedin superstition and devoid of real knowledge?
The responses from our panelists were robust. Here are just a few excerpts:
Helena: Globalization is actually an economic process whereby
governments are giving giant corporations the freedom to do as theyplease. We do not need to hand over rights to global corporations to run
the world, governments, media, academia, science, to have trade andcommunication. For thousands of years, trade was global, and there was somuch more communication than you’d imagine.
Bayo, timestamp 33:00: The question assumes that … all thesetechnologies are created for our good. But that’s only part of the story.
We’re learning, in increasing doses, the hidden costs of these supposed“technologies of convenience”. It’s not just that we’re using our technologies… it’s that we’re being used by our technologies. We are being changed inthis biopolitical dynamic that is increasingly dangerous.

Question, timestamp 51:00:

What about the increase in life expectancy and literacy rate?
Nathalie: A lot of these statistics pertain to communities immediately postcolonization – communities ravaged by diseases, violence, displacement. So
with that as a baseline, of course it's going to look good. But what about
before colonization? Now, archaeologists are showing us that the Amazon
rainforest once supported over 10 million people … in highly evolved,
sophisticated societies that left no trash or ecological damage.
Now their children can read and write Portuguese … and go work in afactory for some multinational corporation. Big thumbs up! None of themknow how to grow their ancestral food. They’re all reliant on eating foodthat has been wrapped in plastic and flown halfway across the world which
is now trashing the waterways and the soil in the Amazon.
So I say, literate in what? There has to be a big reframe of what we consider
progress.
Cyrus: Life expectancy statistics don’t factor in infant mortality, and howpeople once they got past a certain age they lived very long, healthy lives
with much less chronic disease. What’s the quality of life? Is that taken into
consideration?
Bayo: My people, the Yoruba, had such sophisticated communicative
capacities. They knew … which plants to use to heal the human body, theyknew these things without “literacy”. Orality was the complexity of theYoruba tradition. And then we were colonized by British missionaries. Theycame with pencils and a bible and a cross and taught us a certain way of
being in the world, always to the exclusion of other complexities. Thesemarks of “progress” are obscurations of other potential modalities ofabundance.

For more myth-busting, watch the full conversation.

New Planet Local Voices episodes
Iain McGilchrist

Iain McGilchrist is an Oxford literary scholar, a doctor in psychiatry andneuroscience, and the author of the tour-de-force book The Master and His
Emissary, which details the subtle yet profound differences between thebrain's left and right hemispheres.
In this episode, Iain’s research provides the backdrop for discussions of thehuman experience of the sublime, and how important that experience is if
we are to reestablish social and ecological balance in the world. He
discusses his long-standing appreciation for the local, the place-based andthe natural, suggesting that these offer avenues towards right-hemisphereaspects of our experience – aspects which have been neglected, to our
detriment.

Listen to the podcast

Watch the video

Darcia Narvaez

Darcia Narvaez, professor and child developmental psychologist, describes“the evolved nest” – the set of conditions needed for healthy humandevelopment that include close-knit community, affection, care, play, andconnection to nature. Darcia calls for localization – at both the structurallevel and in practice at the community level – in order to restore ourwellbeing.

Listen to the podcast

Watch the video

Jyoti Fernandes

A small farmer, Campaigns Coordinator for The Landworkers' Alliance andspokesperson for La Via Campesina, Jyoti both embodies and powerfullycommunicates the possibility for a more just and sustainable future
through local food sovereignty. In this episode, she articulates a robustcase for policy change, helping us understand what kind of structuraldecisions are needed to shift our food systems away from exploitation andcorporate control, and towards sustainable, local food sovereignty,worldwide.

Listen to the podcast

Watch the video

New from the Local Futures Blog
We Built the Technosphere.
Now We Must Resist It
By Andrew Nikiforuk
This piece offers a simple but powerful
way to understand the global technoeconomic system – a "technosphere"
which stands at odds with thebiosphere, and which rivals it in material
size and might.
"Our brave new world of plastic, wireand concrete promises liberation.
Instead, its cult of efficiency controls
and kills." Read more.

Overview of Digital Technology
By Kate Kheel
The proliferation of digital technology has accelerated
exponentially in the last two decades. New
generations of cellphones now include internet, video
streaming, and a host of internet-connected
applications. Our digital footprint extends to all living
beings, and throughout Earth, ocean, and skies.
Read more.

Upcoming events
Sep 25, Netherlands (in-person): Small, Slow and Local
Hosted by Schumacher Labs, Netherlands
Join Helena Norberg-Hodge at the 2024 Schumacher Lecture event. The
location, Tuinen van West, is a testament to agroecological farming andcommunity efforts, embodying the principles of localization.
More information here.

Sep 26, online: Transforming Global Economies
Hosted by WECAN – Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network
Helena Norberg-Hodge will join this inspiring online event, where womenleaders will shine a light on Just Transition and innovative economic
models, solutions, and frameworks. Register here.

All our best,
the Local Futures teamDonate to Local Futures

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