Join us for an evening of challenging ideas and inspiration with Dr. Vandana Shiva, who will likely cover many of the topics of the Schumacher course she is co-teaching. The course is Beyond Development: creating diverse paths to wealth and wellbeing.
‘Development’ as we know it, has been a one-size-fits-all process imposed upon the majority of the world’s citizens that has paid scant regards to the cultural, ecological and economic specificity of the great diversity of places affected.
Today, there is growing resistance to this model and the emergence of more regionally- and culturally-specific narratives as to what progress would genuinely look like in the different parts of the world.
There is now an opportunity to explore the mosaic of development paths that are emerging and to acknowledge and celebrate the many cultural expressions of wealth and wellbeing. It is for anyone who cares deeply about making the world a better place, and is interested in how this manifests in the way we think about ‘development’."
Vandana Shiva is an Indian physicist, philosopher, feminist and tireless environmental activist. She was involved in the women’s campaign against the destruction of the Himalayan forests, the famous Chipko movement, and now works in the movement to protect biodiversity and prevent the patenting of seeds in India. She has a PhD in the Philosophy of Science and has written many books including Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, Monocultures of the Mind, Biopiracy, Water Wars and most recently, Soil Not Oil. In 1993, she won the Alternative Nobel Prize (the Right Livelihood Award). In 1984, she founded Navdanya, an organisation which works for organic farming methods, biodiversity, the Earth and India’s small farmers. Bija Vidyapeeth, Navdanya’s residential course centre, was inspired by Schumacher College.