Alternatives in a World of Crisis

Our world is facing a multidimensional crisis arising from the very civilizational foundations that capitalist modernity is built on: economic growth, instrumental and destructive societal relations with Nature, a blind belief in science and technology and a rational, profit-maximizing, and individualistic understanding of humanity. These bases have not only produced a specific set of problems, including an unprecedented level of ecological destruction. They also shape the possible solutions that are envisioned and often only aggravate the status quo. Since World War II, the narrative of development has been a very effective instrument in expanding capitalist social and economic relations into the postcolonial world. In the name of development and modernization, a broad variety of other modes of being in the world and understanding it have been labeled as poor, backward, and obsolete. Seeking alternatives beyond development therefore means seeking alternatives beyond this civilization that has led us into this crisis.

This book, which is the result of a group effort, intends to contribute to the urgently needed collective inquiries taking into view new theoretical and political paradigms of social transformation. In six case studies from all over the world and one concluding chapter, it seeks to address simultaneously the complex relations between class, race, coloniality, gender, and Nature, as it is precisely their historical entanglements and interdependencies that configure the civilizational bases of the system we face.