<synthesis> After Extractivism · BG 2022 Project · Info and Call

[Krystian Woznicki]

Hi INC-folks,

in this message I would like to inform you about the BG 2022 project
AFTER EXTRACTIVISM and additionally share a review of our last year's
project BLACK BOX EAST which you'll find at the very bottom.

The BG 2022 project AFTER EXTRACTIVISM launches its intervention at a
critical juncture: two urgent transitions are currently being coupled
with each other, namely, the transition from pandemic misery to
post-pandemic socio-economic "recovery," and that from climate-damaging
to climate-neutral economies. The BG project locates the common causes
for both emergencies in the ecological-economic complex and proposes we
learn from the last big transition – the post-Cold War transition from
"communism" to capitalism – and raise the question of transition
justice. This means tackling what is usually denied in official accounts
of post-1989 transitions: class struggles and the immense, long-lasting
political, social, and, ultimately, environmental costs of transitions.

Such a critical approach seems all the more necessary in the face of
errant if not corrupted transition management nowadays: when governments
(and corporations) officially recognize that the realms of ecology and
economy intertwine in increasingly disastrous ways, they promote
ostensibly "sustainable" measures, but in fact advance mostly variants
of the dominant economic mode as solutions to these problems. However,
envisioning transitions should be inseparable from fundamentally
questioning the dominant economic mode organized around the pursuit of
endless growth, energy-wasting profit coercion, and, last but not least,
resource-devouring extractivism. After all, it is quite obvious that
these are expressions of a centuries-old constellation of power
structures, which have produced the climate catastrophe as a
transgenerational problem. In other words, if said economic mode is key
to the problem, then deploying it as part of the supposed solution only
reinforces and sustains disastrous tendencies. 

Against this backdrop the BG project 2022 challenges activists,
scholars, and cultural workers to research, think, and imagine how we
might go about this dire predicament in solidarity: How can we wager our
future on the legacies and claims of those who – yesterday as today –
have been plunged into existential hardship by the ecological-economic
complex? And how can we make such struggles a source of inspiration for
a common cause?

*Outline*

The detailed project outline, an essay by Magdalena Taube and Krystian
Woznicki, is available in English and German:
https://blogs.mediapart.fr/berliner-gazette/blog/110222/ecological-economic-complex-green-capitalism-and-transition-justice
https://berlinergazette.de/oekologisch-oekonomischer-komplex-gruener-kapitalismus-und-uebergangsgerechtigkeit/

*Text series*

The detailed project outline serves as an introduction to the text
series BG is developing in this context in cooperation with more than 50
activists, researchers, and cultural workers. Invited authors include
Bengi Akbulut, Raia Apostolova, Damir Arsenijević, Kat Austen, Manca
Bajec, Shrishtee Bajpai, Elena Batunova, Leigh Claire La Berge, Renata
Blumberg, Sanja Bojanic, June Brawner, Masha Burina, Kerry Bystrom, Ana
Esther Ceceña, Mijin Cha, Abiol Lual Deng, Jovana Dikovic, Salvatore
Engel-Dimauro, Anna Engelhardt, Dana Domsodi, Asel Doolotkeldieva,
Zoltán Ginelli, Julia Grillmayr, Maria Gunko, Tom Holert, Adriana
Homolova, Katharina Hoppe, Tsvetelina Hristova, Hvale, Özgün Eylül
İşcen, Ela Kagel, Stefan Kausch, Gal Kirn, Katarina Kušić, Joan Kuyek,
Rositsa Kratunkova, Jürgen Link, Agata Lisiak, Marko Luka, Siti
Maimunah, Christoph Marischka, Edna Martínez, Rubén Martínez, Aleksandar
Matković, Regina de Miguel, Andrea Milat, Diana Mincyte, Shintaro
Miyazaki, Ramona Mosse, Tina Munroe, Christine Okoth, Eliana Otta,
Friederike Pank, Shiri Pasternak, Marta Peirano, Ana Teixeira Pinto,
Florin Poenaru, Vijay Prashad, Ivan Rajković, Lira Ramadani, Kevin
Rittberger, Jaron Rowan, Irina Shirobokova, Sotiris Sideris, Felix
Stalder, Jesse Swann-Quinn, Pelin Tan, Stoyo Tetevenski, Stefan Tiron,
Jelena Vasiljevic, Irina Velicu, Andrea Vetter, Henry Veltmeyer, Mihajlo
Vujasin, Amy Walker, Jutta Weber, The Winter Office, and Anna Zalik.

*Call*

If you would like to contribute a text (1,500 words) and/or subscribe to
our newsletter, mail us at info(at)berlinergazette(.)de

*Milestones*

In addition to the text series, published in Berliner Gazette and its
international media partners, the project will encompass a multimedia
website, a three-day conference in Berlin in the fall, and partner events.

*Info page*

More info is available on the project's landing page where you will also
find a short version of the project outline:
https://after-extractivism.berlinergazette.de

*Share*

Please spread the word about the BG 2022 project by forwarding this
email to your contacts and related mailing lists, and by retweeting this
tweet: https://twitter.com/berlinergazette/status/1493141011693977603

*Review BLACK BOX EAST*
 
Last but not least, we would like to share a review of BG 2021 project
BLACK BOX EAST (BBE). Recently published in the EMPTINESS journal, it is
really very worth reading. Here the link:
https://emptiness.eu/field-reports/unboxing-capitalist-incorporation-reflections-from-the-westernmost-frontier-of-postsocialism/

An excerpt from the review reads as follows:

"The BLACK BOX EAST project was clearly a call for more 'theory from the
East', and it undoubtedly offers a valuable counterpoint to liberal
theories which uphold the promises of capitalism and subscribe to its
logic. But in order to truly 'unbox' the East, the East must not only
begin to speak for itself, but also dare to emerge from the precarity
slot if it wants to be represented as more than an easy target of
(neo)colonial interference. The next question could therefore be: What
would Eastern agency and subjectivity beyond the rehearsing of the
transition loser and homo sovieticus archetypes entail? Perhaps the
impetus of the BLACK BOX EAST project could be marking the starting
point for a 'writing back' movement made in the East."

Best wishes,

Krystian (for the BG team)

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------

BG - Berliner Gazette - since 1999 - https://berlinergazette.de

--------------------------------------------------------------

BLACK BOX EAST - "Post-Communist" Laboratories of Globalization
BG Project 2021 w/ Video Talks, Projects, Texts + Artworks
https://blackboxeast.berlinergazette.de

--------------------------------------------------------------