Next Events (2025):

Winter Session “Exnovation and Degrowth: how do we terminate the fossil economy?”
24th – 26th April, 2025. University of Copenhagen
Call for participation (apply here) | Program (TBA)

About the Study Circle

How to blow up an oil pipeline? Or better yet, how to safely and quickly dismantle it, and re-use its parts for something better? In this NSU Study Circle, we aim to study ways to facilitate, support and carry out “exnovation”, meaning the termination of technologies, institutions and practices that contribute to climate, ecological and societal breakdown.

We focus on exnovation as a key concept within the broader “degrowth” paradigm. Degrowth involves the equitable and just down-scaling of production and consumption, undertaken through democratic processes, in order to bring our societies back into balance with the living world, while improving well-being. Exnovation plays an important role in this downscaling: we urgently need creative and democratically engaging ways to undo all the structures that fossil capital has created to make our lives dependent on its unlimited growth.

The Circle will combine technical know-how together with sociological, political and ecological understanding, based on principles of degrowth and environmental justice scholarship. We will work together with civil society: we invite members of social movements that are mobilizing to dismantle fossil fuel infrastructure in the Nordic countries (and beyond) to discuss together the technical, social and political challenges they are facing, and how academic actors can best serve their needs.

How does one go about terminating and disassembling a coal mine, and turning it into a flourishing space where nature can regrow and people can thrive? What are the concrete steps to decommissioning and dismantling a highway, a private jet terminal or a cement factory, and how can we re-occupy and re-purpose these spaces for the well-being of our societies? What existing social movement are already engaged in exnovation campaigns? And which organizations are delaying or facilitating these processes in Nordic countries?

Context of the Study Circle

While much research in the Nordic countries focuses on sustainable energy innovation, little focus has been put on the social, ecological and technical difficulties associated with exnovation: the dismantling, decommissioning and deactivating of existing fossil fuel infrastructure, or other types of unsustainable technologies. Academia has put vast amounts of research capital into trying to find ways to patch over the pollution caused by fossil fuels – e.g. research centers for carbon capture and storage and negative emissions technologies; institutes for “green” hydrogen or “sustainable” offshore drilling – thus validating the narrative that the fossil fuel industry is part of the solution, not the source of the problem. Yet, very little research efforts in the Nordic countries are being directed at finding ways to rapidly and safely un-do fossil fuel or other types of unsustainable infrastructure, and on what to do with the results of this un-doing, with the resulting spaces and materials that are left behind.

Outcomes of this study circle will be grounded in praxis; they will be conducive to or facilitate of exnovative action; and so will be centered around concrete spaces that currently host instruments, machinery or organizations that serve corporate capital, but could be turned into environments that serve nature and people. Importantly, and in line with the NSU values for self-organization and open-access, a guiding principle of our Study Circle is that our outcomes are agnostic to the legal status of the actors that can take advantage of them. We strive for these outcomes to be useful to any person or group of people who wants to carry out an exnovative action. In some cases, this could be governments or State agencies, through legal decommissioning or transformation processes. In other cases, it might be corporations or cooperatives seeking to transform their own operations towards degrowth pathways. And in yet other cases, it could be autonomous groups of self-organized people (including local and Indigenous environmental defenders or direct action groups) that can carry out exnovation on their own, through e.g. occupation, infiltration or sabotage.

Among the outcomes of the Study Circle (running for three years) we foresee:

• The development of a network of exnovative know-how: Who knows how to do what? How can we best connect groups harboring knowledge and groups willing to put that knowledge into practice?
• The creation of a review or database of past and ongoing exnovative actions: How has exnovation taken place in the past? Where is it taking place now? Where and how are different actors struggling to combat and undermine fossil capital in the Nordic countries?
• The creation and dissemination of exnovative guidelines: We aim to develop concrete materials that can be used by any group of individuals intent on dismantling or deactivating unsustainable infrastructure.
• The envisioning of a research+action program in exnovation, that can foster continued knowledge production and sharing in the service of exnovative active citizenship. How can we best help movements working towards exnovation and degrowth? How can (humanist, technical, natural and social science) academics work together with activists in co-building a just post-growth future?

Winter session 2025: establishing a study+action framework and focus tracks

Our first session will involve defining focus tracks and working sub-groups for the rest of the circle: e.g. one track or sub-group could be centered on research in political mobilization, another track could be centered on direct action and technical know-how, and another track could be centered on futuring and cultural shifts in visions and values. This circle will also be about getting to know each other, and establishing a common framework in which to work in future sessions.

Financing and fees

We will provide funds for accommodation to those who need it. We will prioritize allocating funding for people that do not have academic or other sources of funding. Attendance to the winter session requires a 50 Euro fee (half of it will go to cover NSU costs, and the other half to cover study circle costs). There will be a fee waiver for those who can not afford it (more details about this soon).

APPLY HERE

Future sessions

Summer Session “Organizing for exnovation”
20th July – 28th July 2025, Finland