When you look at meetings of initiatives like the Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, you find deeply committed people who are nonetheless trapped in an academic bubble. They debate post-growth theory on an abstract level while their state grants slowly dry up. But where are the people actually affected by poverty or displacement in these discussions? They are completely missing.
We cannot dictate social change from the top down. In our real-world lab in Leipzig-Plagwitz, we develop projects directly out of hands-on practice, in direct dialogue with refugee women. We need to understand the lived realities of the people we are building structures for instead of just quoting textbooks.
