Local Futures Podcast

Епизоде

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  Planet Local Voices II with Warwick Smith 04.09.2026 15мин

  In this episode, Warwick introduces his town of Castlemaine on Dja Dja Wurrung country in Victoria, Australia, and the range of interesting projects happening there. He shares the process of starting the Castlemaine community investment cooperative, which is acquiring real estate for the community and by the community, remove it from rampant speculation to support the local culture, community and economy instead. He stresses relationship building as a key part of this hands-on work, and reflects on ways to help ordinary people and public policymakers understand and put into practice alternative economic development ideas.
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  Planet Local Voices II with Anja Lyngbaek 20.08.2026 29мин

  In her interview for Planet Local Voices II, Anja discusses the cascade of social and environmental harms being caused by the global growth-obsessed corporate-controlled economy, and conversely, the multiple benefits to people and nature the accrue from a systemic shift towards the local. This dynamic is, she argues, most starkly visible in the food system, which under corporate globalization is destroying the planet, local economies and health, but under a shift to localized, ecological production and consumption models heals our interlocking polycrises simultaneously. Anja issues a rousing call to get involved, become an activist - especially a food activist - and link up with others to heal our relationship with the land beneath our feet, but also to transform the system that is driving catastrophe. Millions of people are already doing this, she reminds us, and from this realization we can draw inspiration and hope in dark times.
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  Planet Local Voices II with Vu Truong and Thien Quach 05.08.2026 27мин

  In this episode of Planet Local Voices II, Vu and Thien paint an evocative picture of the deeply relational, humble and nurturing traditional values and lifestyles that prevailed until recently in Vietnam, and how these have been dramatically undermined and degraded by the race for material wealth and ”success” brought about by recent decades of mainstream development, modernization and ”progress”. Still, beneath the pavement and within the cracks of development, the old values still survive, and with them more and more people are turning away from the soul-deadening, polluting mainstream to create ”many streams” of regenerative, life-affirming, meaningful alternatives - a process that VCIL Community is playing a vital role in nurturing.
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  Planet Local Voices II with Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn 08.07.2026 28мин

  In this episode, we go deep into metaphysics, ‘staying with the trouble’ of the current moment while also seeing the bigger picture. Catherine leads us in drawing lessons from Maori language and worldviews, and we think through the cycles of time to find life-sustaining hope for the future.
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  Planet Local Voices II with Lars Veraart 03.06.2026 15мин

  In this episode of Planet Local Voices II, Lars offers a concise and lovely story of social, cultural, and ecological regeneration in action. He describes the process of ’becoming a peasant’ in Romania and the surprise of the local villagers as he and his family began to emulate their ways. He speaks of change and ecocide, but also of hopeful signs, stressing the oft-overlooked relationship between small-scale farming and wild biodiversity conservation. He also shares about how non-violent communication and localisation have informed his work.
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  Planet Local Voices II with Mattias Desmet 14.05.2026 25мин

  In this episode of Planet Local Voices II, Mattias explains how the poly-crises roiling the world today ultimately stem from a metaphysical crisis, a ”de-souling” of the world produced by a rationalism in Western science that lost sight of its own limitations. Excessive rationalism, he argues, is actually deeply irrational, and the socio-ecological breakdowns we are witnessing today, in many cases produced by the most advanced science applied to technology, are a clear illustration of this. Unless subordinated to deeper values and ethics, science and rationalism will continue to lead the world to ruin.
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  Planet Local Voices II with Shrishtee Bajpai 22.04.2026 29мин

  In this episode of Planet Local Voices II, Shrishtee lays out the profound nature of indigenous worldviews rooted in collective care and respect for, and intimate relationship with, the rest of the living Earth, and the work of bringing this ancient sensibility into contemporary practice through movements for the Rights of Nature and Earthy Governance. She explains how local, indigenous and other land-based and communities around the world are defending their territories and building locally-rooted alternatives to the destructive dominant economic system. Finally, she reflects on the political nature of hope, as a disciple through which we push back against the closure of the imagination, and allow ourselves to dream of - and enact - better futures.
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  Planet Local Voices II - Jason Nardi - Solidarity Economies for Collective Power 09.04.2026 18мин

  In this episode of Planet Local Voices II, Jason defines the social and solidarity economy concepts and diverse practices including collective ownership, cooperation, sufficiency- and needs-based production and exchange, and connects these to the localization and bioregionalist movements.
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  Planet Local Voices II - Aseem Shrivastava – An Ecosophical Critique of Modernity 19.03.2026 41мин

  In this interview for the Planet Local Voices II, Aseem delves into the philosophical roots of our present crises in the rise of modernity which effected an ‘earth alienation’ that ultimately gave rise to colonialism and today’s catastrophic obsession with economic growth and progress. The values of modernity – including individualism, instrumentalism, and mechanization – drive the dominant world system, in which we are all embedded. As a radical alternative, Aseem proposes ‘ecosophy’, an ecological philosophy that rejects the philosophical foundations of modernity and calls instead for us to return to and embrace our home, the Earth.
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  Planet Local Voices II - Laura Kaestele - Living Alternatives, Active Hope 25.02.2026 25мин

  Drawing on a wealth of practical experience from regenerative community building, Laura Kaestele, discusses the importance of living models of localization in keeping alive a sense of active hope and radical imagination for a more beautiful, just and nourishing world.
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  The Bristol Conversations – Bayo Akomolafe 15.12.2025 21мин

  In this conversation with Helena Norberg-Hodge, Bayo reflects on the ruptures in modernity that have sparked his own questioning. Going beyond a politics which fetishizes identity and category, he invites us to open up other spaces of power – where the immediate, the understated, and the local are more profound and more promising than grand slogans and ideas.
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  The Bristol Conversations – Lyla June Johnston 20.11.2025 27мин

  Dr. Lyla June Johnston is an indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer of Diné Navajo, Cheyenne and European lineages. She blends her study of human ecology, graduate work in indigenous pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives and solutions. Her research has focused on the ways in which pre-colonial indigenous nations shaped large regions of Turtle Island (aka the Americas) to produce abundant food systems. In this conversation, Helena and Lyla weave together different lines of heritage and experience, getting into deep discussions about identity, psychology and culture. They focus a lot on European identities and salvaging them from cruel and inaccurate narratives of progress which have cast many as fools, and many as villains. They come out with a throughline that connects the ’ancient primitive’ with ’ancient futures’.
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  The Bristol Conversations – Manish Jain 28.10.2025 28мин

  In this conversation, Manish and Helena Norberg-Hodge bounce of each other in a radical questioning of concepts like progress, freedom, wealth, empowerment and knowledge. Manish shares his personal story of disillusionment with the dominant system, sketching the profound worldview shift he had to undergo in order to come back to life, love, and local wisdom.
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  The Bristol Conversations – Iain McGilchrist 10.10.2025 47мин

  In this conversation with pioneer of the new economy/localization movement, Helena Norberg-Hodge, the two draw connections between their seemingly quite different bodies of work. They discuss human psychology, community, connection to nature, spirituality, technocracy, and AI. They illuminate how the struggle between the brain’s left and right hemispheres relates to the global techno-economic system, the damage it’s doing, and exactly how we might change it.
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  The Bristol Conversations – Camila Moreno 24.09.2025 27мин

  This conversation between Camila and Helena Norberg-Hodge strengthens our critical awareness of the often unconscious but undeniable hijacking of social and environmental concerns and their buzzwords. It’s a conversation that will help activists and everyday people remain impervious to co-optation and stay true to a vision of real ecological integrity.
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  The Bristol Conversations – Nelson Mudzingwa 27.08.2025 28мин

  In this conversation with Helena Norberg Hodge, Nelson extols the benefits of local food systems that are closely connected to culture, community and the land. With firsthand experience, he highlights how local seeds and local knowledge systems offer real resilience and prosperity, especially in a time of climate change and market volatility. As a leading spokesperson for the global peasant movement, Nelson debunks the stubborn notion that we need big agribusiness – and particularly the so-called ‘Green Revolution in Africa’ – to feed the world.
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  The Bristol Conversation – Michael Shuman 05.08.2025 44мин

  In this highly informative episode, Helena and Michael deliver critical but creative takes on buzzwords like ethical investment and impact investing. Drawing on demonstrative examples, they explore how place-based institutions, economies and the policies that support them can revolutionize not only our local communities but global geopolitics, and ultimately give rise to an ’economics of happiness’.
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  The Bristol Conversation – Darcia Narvaez 15.07.2025 24мин

  We kick the series off with Darcia Narvaez. Darcia is professor emerita of psychology at the University of Notre Dame. She studies morality, child development and human flourishing, and she does so by integrating disciplines like anthropology, neuroscience, developmental psychology and evolutionary biology. Helena, in turn, holds a very compatible perspective on human development thanks to her learnings from many years spent in the indigenous culture of Ladakh.
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  World Localization Extravaganza! Part 3: A TOUCH OF GENIUS 02.07.2025 34мин

  The final episode in the World Localization Extravaganza counters the “bigger, more complex and more violent” logic of the dominant system with a bottom-up approach built on peoplepower, local sovereignty and small-scale economies. The episode stresses how, even and especially in the face of global crises, localization simply makes sense.
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  World Localization Extravaganza! Part 2: THE POTENT PARADOX 22.06.2025 33мин

  This second episode in the trio offers shining examples of localization-in-action in the USA, Brazil, Bangladesh and Nepal, while also stressing efforts to build up broad-based, international coalitions for strategic policy change.