Presentation short abstract

As floods and fires engulf more of our homes, varieties of 'disaster ecosocialism' are desperately being excavated from ruins. What connects disaster solidarity with an ecosocialist, degrowth horizon? This presentation braids degrowth, disaster studies and political ecology to develop those links.

Presentation long abstract

In their reflection on 20 years of the RADIX network -- the home of radical interpretations of disaster -- Ben Wisner and Maureen Fordham (2022) asked a provocative question: Which disaster solutions assume an infinitely expanding market economy, and which ones are "compatible with a degrowth strategy"? This talk explores the latter possibility in depth by articulating a conceptual framework to link disaster studies and degrowth. Drawing on evidence collected from recent disasters in Valencia (DANA 2024), Cuba (Hurricane Helene 2025), and New Orleans (Hurricane Ida 2021), I highlight the manifold ways that radical approaches to disaster -- centered on repair, care, and social reproduction -- challenge the capitalist growth machines at work in disaster zones. Through material practices, affective labor, alliance-building, territorialized organization, and cultural work, I trace the rise and revival of 'disaster councils': communal institutions where affected groups do the work of contesting reconstruction and articulating alternatives. I show how these alternatives often emphasize degrowth-like logics, and serve as vital spaces of learning and unity for militant sectors of anti-capitalist struggle. I describe the strengths and limitations of strategies centered on mutual aid and self-organization, highlighting dilemmas of scale, state engagement, sustainability, and the centrality of exhaustion as an emotion. I conclude by describing possibilities for a political ecology of disaster that centers radical alternatives to capitalist growth and maladaptive development.