The Prospects of a Pluriversal Transition to a Post-Capitalist, Post-Carbon Future

The historical inevitability of a deep civilizational shift is well understood by a growing number of progressive movements. The landscape of these movements (also known as the “pluriverse” of post-capitalist alternatives) continues to grow as they respond to the current global crises. Surely, there is already an abundance of transformative practices, utopian visions, and transition theories. However, most of this landscape is unknown, since they do not make headlines in the mainstream media and are largely neglected by the political and economic elite. Moreover, the landscape is dynamic, diverse, and constantly evolving, adding to the complexities of social transitions we are witnessing today.

This joint session invites its contributors to share their knowledge of the pluriverse and help address the question of how to co-develop an inclusive and dynamic knowledge of transformative alternatives and make this knowledge a historical force that actively empowers and synergizes myriad actors.

The event also invites critical reflections on the contradictions between centralist and decentralist tendencies and the dilemma of unity vs diversity as perhaps the most critical problem for many movements within pluriversal politics. Historically, authoritarian movements have shown a greater capacity to overcome this dilemma in favor of an imposed unity, acting against diversity. However, the trillion-dollar question for the movements in the pluriverse of progressive alternatives is how to create dynamic and sustainable synergies across multiple differences that would result in fully-fledged systemic replacements.

[We are looking forward to creating a special issue out of the accepted submissions for the Globalizations journal]