In August we meet again in the Swiss mountains to build a community and learn from each other. In this year's edition, we will discuss antifascist economics in a collaborative and inquisitive atmosphere. The focus lies on three sectors: Housing, Energy, and Agriculture.

In the mornings, there are different workshop formats and collaborative spaces enabling a participatory knowledge production. In the afternoon renowned researchers and experts are going to introduce us to different aspects and perspectives directly linked to this year's Topic. We will start the week with an intro panel, then follow up with sector-specific inputs, and close the week with a wrap-up on Thursday.

Schedule

Summary of our schedule for the week (scroll left / right). Check your email for the complete version with workshop details:

Speakers

Basics workshops

The Basics on Heterodox Economics (yellow slots in the schedule) equip participants with the tools and background knowledge on pluralism within Economics, focusing on transformation and antifascist economics. You will meet your Basics group at the beginning of the week and stick with them until you do the check-out on the last day. This means that you will spend some time in this group and get to know the other participants, discuss the preparation material (that you will be reading in advance) and inputs with them, and hopefully even find some new friends. In terms of content there are three tracks.

Basics 1 starts on Sunday with an introduction of different ontologies of economics. From there we proceed with a comparison of different quantitative and qualitative research methods on Monday, and end with a discussion of the role of scientists in social transformation as well as the relationship between researchers and the people they study on Wednesday.

Basics 2 discusses how economic theories inform economic policy and reflect on those policies (e.g. debt brake) through the lense of different paradigms. We look at the history of knowledge production, and how knowledge should be produced in order to support antifascist economics. Moreover, we discuss philosophy of social sciences and link it to antifascist economics, which we see as an evolving research agenda. How can we contribute to that process, where are gaps that we could help closing?

CoLab: Especially for participants who already participated in the Basics Workshops - but also open for others - we have 3-4 groups who will work on a project together. Stay updated to know more about the specific projects!

Participant workshops

On Tuesday and Thursday morning (orange slots in the schedule), participants are given the space to hold their own workshops or present academic and activist projects they are currently working on. Topics could look like: Social-ecological transformation in a specific sector, accounting for unpaid work in a statistics-based economy, a discussion on the specific challenges of implementing a degrowth economy in Switzerland, or different how-to-workshops (e.g., how to organize your own lecture series at uni, …).

Participants interested in holding a workshop are not expected to be a researcher or expert on the topic. (After all this format is aimed at breaking hierarchies in the academic knowledge production.) Instead participants are expected to create a sound didactic concept: Preferably your workshop is designed as participative as possible and contains refreshing hands-on elements.

After we reviewed the applications, participants will receive more information as well as the opportunity to share their workshop ideas and concepts.

Preparation materials

Will be shared with you soon!