Deep transformations: A theory of degrowth
Next year, my co-authored book is coming out. The publisher (Manchester University Press) mentioned that it would come out in May 2024, but likely it will be sooner than that. We started writing this book in August-September 2021 and finished it in February 2023. I wanted to say something about it because the publisher didn't mention it very explicitly on their website that the book will be open access, only in small print. To me it's important that fellow humans do not spend money on the book when they can get an online version of it free of charge.
Hubert invited me to join the book project in August 2021 when I just moved to Sweden. Since then it has been a long journey. Each one of us worked on all of the chapters, but the idea was to distribute the writing of 9 chapters equally amongst ourselves. Since I am more interested in humans and businesses, I wanted to write about civil society and business.
Now I am working on my own book that will be very raw and reflective, I notice how much is concealed from the reader. These days, when I read a book, I wonder what was unfolding in the author's life, what mood and state of mind they were in when they were working on the book. I wonder where they were geographically. While I started working on the book in Sweden, I wrote some things in Finland and I will see the book published when I am in Denmark. Working on the book coincided with the unfolding of my connection with Hubert. While writing the book itself was pleasant, there were so many other unfoldings in life. 2023 has been perhaps the most challenging year for me.
The title of the book goes back to the first paper Hubert and I co-authored. The paper was about a science of deep transformations. The word "depth" is meaningful to me for many reasons. It refers to critical realist depth ontology and accounting in our contemplations of change for everything, from our psyche to material transactions with nature. It refers to more nuanced and also holistic contemplations. It refers to deep ecology too. I've written about business of deep transformations and being of deep transformations (which is also the name of this autoethnography and my autoethnographic paper). Currently I am working on a very short paper with Hubert and Max about economics for deep transformations. The word "depth" also features in the book I am working on.
The cover of the book is a picture I took when I just moved to Finland. It was winter time and I was standing by the window in my aparthotel in Espoo. The window had wonderful ice patterns on it. The direction is the East and the sun was still very low in winter. It was early morning. Through the window you can see the outline of a hotel in front of the aparthotel, and in the distance there is the island where I would live later on. I was in awe of the sunrise and the magical patterns on the window. I called the picture "Awe". Somehow looking at the sunrise through these magical patterns evoked a sense of hope and oneness with the universe. At that time I didn't know how things in Finland would unfold. I was very ill in that country, I felt separated from the places I loved, far from the humans I wanted to be close to, and deeply unhappy with the organisational culture of my workplace. But I felt connected with the cosmos and experienced nature's presence. I lived by and with the sea.
I am happy with the book and I learned many things on the way. I came to a realisation that I wanted to write my own book. When you co-author, it is always a compromise. Compromise is not bad in itself, and the idea for us, the authors, was indeed to come together and bring our knowledge together for a more nuanced understanding of sustainability transformations. Hubert is a critical political economist. Max is a sociologist. I study business. Hubert and Max come from a Marxian perspective, while I come from an anarchist perspective. But there are so many things that I wanted to say that could not be part of this particular book. The book is an academic work, while I feel inclined to write in a way that is personal, raw, place-based and even emotional. I do not want to adjust my vocabulary, and instead I feel the need to use exactly the words I have in mind, such as spirituality, the cosmos, the soul.
We had a good dynamic within our co-authorship team. Unfortunately we couldn't see each other often. But Hubert and I were friends and then lovers. With Max we were colleagues and then I discovered parts of his personality that I value deeply. He is a very kind human being. Via Max I met Eileen, an artist whose work I love.
