Highland Degrowth Gathering: Offers and Needs Market, The Ceilidh Place, Ullapool

In spring 2022, Enough! and the Scottish Degrowth Network hosted two gatherings (Glasgow and Ullapool), seeking to connect those who are actively exploring ideas of degrowth and decolonisation in their life, work or practice.

In my role as Enough collective member I co-hosted the Ullapool gathering on Saturday 19th March along with collaborator Rachel Skene, based in Helmsdale. Our focus at this gathering was to build and deepen the relationships between and across those of us who are trying to do things differently in the Highlands and Islands - challenging our economic system in big or small ways. We recognise all-too-well the need to justify time spent in meetings as ‘productive’ and so we chose to convene for a different reason: the reciprocal sharing of our gifts and needs, running an adapted version of the Offers and Needs market (OANM), an idea developed by The Postgrowth Institute - see below.

We viewed this is as an experiment and opportunity to stimulate meaningful connections, capture something emergent, catalyse exchanges and open up new possibilities for the fledgling Degrowth Network in Scotland.

Degrowth Network

The Degrowth Network in Scotland seeks to cultivate a root system of alternatives - building the infrastructure we need to respond to crisis and challenge the inevitability of what we are facing. The Network is a theory of change that says that systems can change when new networks replace the old. As we live through accelerating crises, deepening need and some existential dread, the work of fighting for and building a better world has never felt more urgent. The extractive economic system we live under has crossed a threshold of irreparability; our growth-dependent economy is driving us to collapse. Capitalism is relentless. To slow down is therefore an intentional act of resistance. Slowness and care are needed to offset the urgency of crisis – an urgency which often replicates the extractive system we are trying to transform. There is hope, because we know that the seeds of a degrowth future are already here. Alternative economies are emerging all around that foreground economic justice, social wellbeing and ecological regeneration - beyond capitalism and within ecological limits. Read more

Offers and Needs Market (OANM)

Why aren’t we all more forthcoming in what we’re offering and what we need from each other? In part it’s because the commodification of our lives distances us from our exchanges. The irony of the modern market is that it can deliver what we need from the other side of the world at the click of a button – at huge environmental cost – yet we might not know what exists in our own local places or networks.

The Offers and Needs Market (OANM) is a guided process developed by the Post Growth Institute designed to enable community members to come together to identify and share their passions, knowledge, skills, resources and needs. It draws on the ideas of mutual aid networks, gift circles, abundance swaps, the Local Exchange Trading System, time-banking as well as asset- based thinking and mapping.

By making participation in the sharing economy simple, OANMs are a tool for building collective trust. It’s a simple, fast, and inexpensive way to resource a network or movement because it focuses on what already exists. The idea is that, by working together, we can realise a new economy and thriving communities that serve all of our needs. We also hope that you see the value in OANM for your own local communities, organisations or networks.

At its core, OANM is about discovering, elevating, and distributing gifts within a community, unearthing the diverse forms of wealth we all have, focusing on what is abundant rather than on what is scarce. These gifts become the foundation for connection.