I recently closed the PostGrowth.co community website, a movement that was active for a few years but which never really materialised into a worthy project.
Initially I had created the PostGrowth website because I had been helping various degrowth and postgrowth communities, charities, not-for-profits, even just people operating within the space, on a probono basis, using my own marketing and web skills to assist them. I did this because of my love of the degrowth movement - I didn't feel that people in that space should miss out on marketing benefits because they couldn't afford to hire someone, so I offered my services for free.
I figured at some point it would be cool to turn this into an actual community of like minded people, trying to help the post growth movement become more mainstream, offering to provide their services for free.
Whilst we had a total of 20 members at one point, the struggle was always in finding time to meet up and collaborate collectively.
Avoiding Extractive Behaviours
One issue I had with this movement is that one consultant who approached PostGrowth asking for help, ended up doing so in a fairly extractive manner. Eg - expecting free help and being "not so grateful" for the support given. And I think this was the main problem with the movement, and why I never pushed it fully - when you offer something (like this) for free - people will take advantage.
This is sadly a fact, from my point of view. I've experienced this many times since offering probono marketing services for charities. As a freelancer or consultant you are seen as very expendable. There is no strong relationship between you and your client, and when offering your services for free, this issue is multiplied several fold.
Therefore as a movement made up of consultants willing to provide our services for free, to those operating in the postgrowth space, we were at great risk of being abused as a result of this generosity - which was sad to accept but it is what it is.
Problems with understanding the Post Growth definition
Another issue the group tackled is that many people don't quite understand what Post Growth means - which is understandable as its a fairly undefined concept, being considered as "whatever comes after our economic obsession on growth, and the rise in GDP".
I think if consultants joining us didn't quite grasp the concept, despite being aware of the definition of degrowth, then it's probably fair to assume that the people who operate in this space - and were looking for free support - also weren't quite sure if they were indeed "eligible". This is to say, it is hard to know if they are also within the Post Growth space (is a circular business applicable? what about a business that supports the right to repair and other initiatives?).
Ultimately the collective would decide who we could/couldn't help, but still, we would receive enquiries for help from people and businesses that perhaps didn't fall within the Post Growth category. But this should be expected for a way of living/working which is still in its infancy.
Focusing on other initiatives
I'm still personally a fan of some elements of degrowth and postgrowth-ism - albeit I have also backed away from some degrowth voluntary work I had been doing, for various reasons. But for now, and with the PostGrowth collective closed, I would like to focus efforts on the No To Big Tech movement, which is really just me and others putting degrowth and postgrowth ideas into practice. I think that technology is a good vehicle for showing people how this current mode of living is wrong, and how we are way too reliant on tech which is harmful to the wider society and so on.
I should point out my gratitude to the team at Osuny and Noesya, who kindly hosted the PostGrowth website, in terms of providing the CMS that would make the website, and then the physical hosting (via Deuxfleurs). So, I regret having to ask them to delete this website, considering the time they also invested into it. I wrote a blog post about Osuny, the sustainable website builder a while back.
