Abstract This poem aims to shed light on the psychological and existential impacts of exclusion, displacement, and belonging through a “home” lens. The poem set out to explore the lived experiences of individuals navigating identity, trauma, and the search for a better home, both in the literal and symbolic sense. The repeated refrain of “Go Home” mirrors the dividing – if not polarizing – narratives that are often aired or quoted in a rush or without context, rhetorics that are increasingly faced by most – if not all – disenfranchised communities. The poem also aims to invite the audience to reflect upon the social constructions of “home”, and the importance of finding the “right” interpretations and manifestations to the healing journey that is life. From a broader perspective, the poem articulates the silent struggles many of us shoulder while searching for meaning and purpose in the daily and existential, particularly underserved populations with histories of migration, systemic exclusion, or generational trauma. Overall, the poem aims to offer insights into the emotional landscapes that therapeutic communities must hold and address in fostering inclusion, resilience, and transformation in this day and age, a time when home and belonging are increasingly difficult to find and guard.
So far, degrowth scholarship remains largely shaped by a form of methodological localism or nationalism that risks reproducing current asymmetric and colonial relations on the global scale. Against this background, our introduction to the forum argues that degrowth can only adequately be theorized through the lens of global (inter)dependencies: structurally reproduced relations of dependence and mutual entanglement that operate across national borders and generate growth imperatives, constrain policy space, and displace ecological and social costs across territories, social groups, and generations. We propose five heuristic dimensions - structural-economic, institutional-(geo-)political, socio-ecological, socio-reproductive, and epistemic-discursive - that together explain how growth dependencies are produced and stabilized at the world scale. Ultimately, global degrowth implies challenging and abolishing some (environmentally destructive and socially unjust) forms of (inter)dependence, while strengthening and reshaping others. This introductory article is followed by 11 contributions that investigate global (inter)dependencies from various perspectives.
Abstract This article takes the contemporary revival of the “Balkanization” metaphor as a starting point from which to examine its transnational historical trajectory. The existing literature has interpreted “Balkanization” either as a variation of Orientalism or as a symptom of de-globalization. Drawing on the theory of multiple globalization projects, this article traces the circulation of the term across different political and geographical contexts, asking what kinds of crises it tends to encapsulate in the course of its travels. Methodologically, the study relies on the transnational travels of concepts and critical metaphor analysis. The article shows that the term has come to embody both the promises and perils of the national globalization project – its aspirations to autonomy and destruction of the existing imperial order, as well as its inner potential toward imperialism and its own vulnerability to further fragmentation. “Balkanization,” then, mirrors the tensions between different globalizations embodying experiments with territory, sovereignty, citizenship and the politics of belonging. Far from being an anomaly standing for fragmentation or the “Orientalist gaze,” “Balkanization” actually renders visible the global history of multiple globalizations and the various perspectives of its protagonists.
