Code Red, Code Green: Shaping the Ecosocialist Transformation – Call for Papers

Published at Undisciplined Environments

The world’s interlinked social and ecological crises are inspiring movements to collectively imagine and set in motion ecosocialist alternatives to capitalism’s exploitation of people and nature. Building on the discussions at the 4th International Ecosocialist Encounters held in 2018 in Lisbon, this call for papers at the online journal e-cadernos CES of the Centre for Social Studies (University of Coimbra) seeks to contribute to the theoretical-methodological advancement of ecosocialism.

As we take critical account of the last two decades, it is alarming to see that social collapse is not just matching but actually outpacing ecological disaster. The loss of biodiversity and destruction of essential ecosystems has reached catastrophic levels, the planet is expected to heat up well beyond the two-degree limit agreed in Paris, pollution has become systemic in every conceivable corner of our Earth, diseases we thought extinct are returning, while we are losing our commons to private enterprises and foreign Governments.

Currently, millions are expelled from their homes, lands, workplaces, even their countries, having no say about their destinies. As a consequence, we are seeing a renewed rise in hunger, poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion, making room for the expansion of irrational racism, nationalism and patriarchal, colonialist and reactionary attitudes.

Nothing is being done to address capitalism’s two main contradictions: the exploitation of its most important productive elements – people and Nature. Under the industrialist capitalist hegemony we are producing, reproducing, distributing, and consuming is not progress, but rather a profound disenfranchisement and the destruction of the very own fabric and cultural means that have always sustained human civilizations.

Since 2014, ecosocialist and ecofeminist collectives, trade unions, social and peasant movements and political organisations have been meeting yearly to collectively imagine and set in motion an ecosocialist alternative to the current destructive economic paradigm. 

Ecosocialism draws on a diversity of traditions, such as Marxism, utopian socialism, social ecology or Indo-American ecology, and feeds on a plurality of knowledge systems developed by social movements and NGOs (of ecologist, worker, feminist or pacifist inspirations, among others). It has therefore proven itself to be a fertile field for social experimentation and the debate and development of very relevant knowledges and alternatives.

The 4th International Ecosocialist Encounters took place in Lisbon, November 23-25, 2018, under the theme “Code Red, Code Green: Shaping the Ecosocialist Transformation” and were co-organised by the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra.

This special issue aims to contribute to the theoretical-methodological advancement of ecosocialism in the context of the topics listed below:

1. The political economy of food and food sovereignty
2. Dismantling the fallacy of green capitalism
3. Workers organisation and economic democracy
4. Climate justice and energy democracy
5. Ecofeminisms: critical theory and perspectives

It is expected that contributions to the present issue will allow for registering and also expanding on the ideas presented by academics and activists in the different thematic sections of the 4th International Ecosocialist Encounters, and also extend the debate to other researchers who have been working along the same lines.

e-cadernos CES is a peer-reviewed, online and entirely open access journal, published by the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (Portugal). The journal is currently indexed in CAPES, DOAJ, EBSCO, ERIH Plus and Latindex. For more information about this publication see https://journals.openedition.org/eces/?lang=en.

Texts should be presented in final version, in Portuguese, English, Spanish, or French. Manuscripts must be originals and not exceed 60,000 characters (with spaces), including notes and references. For the final section @cetera, other manuscripts may be submitted (up to 35,000 characters), such as interviews and discussions (up to 25,000 characters) or book reviews (up to 5,000 characters).

Detailed guidelines for submitting texts are available at https://journals.openedition.org/eces/805. Manuscripts should be sent by email to e-cadernos@ces.uc.pt and authors should clearly identify the thematic issue in question – “Code Red, Code Green”.

All manuscripts will go through a double-blind peer review process.

Editors: Lanka Horstink (ICS, Universidade de Lisboa), Lúcia Fernandes (CES, Universidade de Coimbra), Rita Campos (CES, Universidade de Coimbra)

Deadline for submission: April 15, 2020

5 Reasons Why You Should Join Green Left

Green Left was formed in 2006 by members of the Green Party of England and Wales, as a grouping for ecosocialist and other anti-capitalist radicals and to raise Green party politics to meet the demands of its radical policies. As well as acting as an outreach body that communicates the party’s radical policies to socialists and other anti-capitalists outside of the party.

First off, you do need to be a Green party member to join Green Left, although that includes any national Green party, not only that of England and Wales.

      1. After one meeting of Green Left, a new recruit said to me that it felt good to be around 'likeminded’ people. This is an important point, although most Green party members are somewhere on the left, for true socialists it is good to be in the company of people who think like you. Green Left does offer a comradely space to discuss ideas and to organise for ecosocialists within the Green party.
     
      2. The Green party has had something of an image problem over the years. That being, white and middle class. To be fair there is some truth in this, but how will that change (and it is starting to change) unless we can address issues that are important to working class and ethnic communities? Green Left stands for a clear and unequivocal ecosocialism which champions the interests of, to coin a phrase, the 99%.
     
      3. One of the objectives of Green Left is of an outreach body, for the Green party, to socialists and other radicals from outside of the party. We aim to give such people the confidence that they are joining a party of the left, where their political thinking will be welcomed.
     
      4. Green Left strives to increase and improve the international links of the Green Party, building contacts with radical greens and ecosocialists across the planet. We will continue to work closely with members of other European Green parties to coordinate efforts to tackle our common ecological ills, despite the UK leaving the European Union.  
  
      5. Perhaps the most important reason for Green Left’s existence is to act within the Green Party so as to raise Green party politics to meet the demands of its radical policies. Green politics needs to be based on dynamic campaigning and hard intellectual groundwork to create workable alternatives. To this end, Green Left is kind of like the conscience of the Green party and helps it to focus on its fundamentally radical philosophy.   

In short, Green Left works to enable you to live in a society based on peace, ecological balance, economic equality and inclusion.

Join Green Left here