Local Bites

Rutendo Ngara is a holder of indigenous African knowledge systems and a transdisciplinary researcher. She is a practitioner of a number of physical disciplines, including dance and yoga, and has represented South Africa as an international silver medalist in martial arts (Wushu/Kung Fu/Tai Ji). Rutendo serves on the boards of the Credo Mutwa Foundation, the South African Wushu Federation, and the ASSEGAIA Alliance for protection of sacred sites. She is also an electrical and biomedical engineer, and is pursuing a doctorate in Philosophy of Education. The quest for harmony and healing underpins her diverse endeavors. In this episode, Rutendo blends different ways of knowing and perceiving. She utilizes African concepts like Ubuntu and Sankofa as lenses through which to examine and critique western notions of progress, efficiency, time, and economics. With forays into the worlds of engineering, biomedicine and academia, she communicates a big-picture perspective on modernity, and raises questions about our col

A political economist and environmentalist, Andrew Simms is at the forefront of the movement for a new economy in the UK and around the world. His books include Cancel the Apocalypse, Tescopoly: How One Shop Came Out on Top and Why it Matters, and Economics: A Crash Course. He is coordinator of the New Weather Institute, the Rapid Transition Alliance and the Badvertising campaign. He is also a fellow at the New Economics Foundation, and research associate at the Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex. In this episode, Andrew outlines why a shift from global to local is integral to his vision of a new economy. He shines an incisive light on the foundations of today's economy, exposing and interrogating ideas like "growth" through GDP, and exploring practicable alternatives. Brimming with informed optimism, he highlights the very real possibilities for economic change.   To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series. The music for this series is ‘Pines and Vio

Eva Henje is a neuroscientist, trauma therapist, and associate professor at Sweden’s Umeå university, specialising in child and adolescent psychiatry. Eva describes herself as mental health activist, because she’s passionate about raising awareness about the systemic reasons behind increasing rates of depression. She has created programs to empower and destigmatize young people with psychological suffering, and has helped develop alternatives to the current psychiatric diagnostic systems.   In this episode, Eva elucidates some of the profound connections between the economy we live in and our most intimate experiences of being human. Exploring the root causes of the widespread mental health crises, Eva shifts the focus from individual pathologies to societal malaise and the economic system responsible for it. She also lays out a path for people to shift from isolation and disempowerment towards community care, connection and, ultimately, activism.   To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voice

Juan del Rio is a pioneer of the Transition movement in Spain, and the Co-Director of ECOLISE, the European network for community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability. He is the co-founder of the Municipalities in Transition project, and the co-director of an inspiring new film about bottom-up initiatives in Spain called ALTERNATIVAS: Building possible futures. In this episode, Juan opens our eyes to the plethora of community-led responses to social, economic crises and climate change, especially in the Spanish-speaking world, where models of transition are being adapted to diverse cultures and bioregions. He speaks about how this movement of alternatives is helping to bridge the divide between left and right, and he also offers advice on how the grassroots can and should collaborate with local governments.   To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series. The music for this series is ‘Pines and Violet’, by Sky Toes.

Keibo Oiwa is a professor, cultural anthropologist, and a widely respected philosopher and organizer in Japan. He co-authored, with David Suzuki, a book about bottom-up movements for peace, human rights and environmentalism, called 'The Japan We Never Knew'. He is the founder of The Sloth Club – an NGO that promotes slow and sustainable living. The Sloth Club, coupled with Keibo's book Slow is Beautiful: Culture as Slowness, have fostered a new appreciation of rural life and a simpler way of living. In this episode, Keibo offers us a portrait of a Japan moving in two different directions. He sounds the alarm about the cultural and spiritual devastation that has been a deeply tragic cost of Japan's pursuit of globalized development. But he also speaks of a widespread cultural resurgence – a movement towards regeneration, community and nature. He highlights cultural "keywords" that can be rediscovered in the Japanese cultural fabric, and which can be used as a guide for these emerging movements.   To watch the

Thais Mantovani is a young woman from São Paulo, Brazil, passionate about education reform and eco-cultural regeneration. An alumnus of Schumacher College, she is the co-founder of EcoUniversidade, a Youth Climate Leaders fellow, a member of the Global Regeneration CoLab network, and a long-time collaborator of Local Futures. She studies and promotes localization and regeneration in Brazil. In this episode, Thais encourages those trapped in the modern world to step beyond its ideological confines. She shares experiences of living local cultures in indigenous Amazonia, and gives examples of localization projects in the favelas of São Paulo. She calls out modern schooling as a tool of indoctrination, and highlights the importance of reweaving trust-based community relationships – not only for survival, but also for health and happiness. To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series. The music for this series is ‘Pines and Violet’, by Sky Toes.

Chris Smaje is an author, small-scale farmer, social scientist, and food system analyst. His work explores the current moment of vast change, as the dynamics of climate, energy, politics and natural ecosystems upend familiar assumptions about how the world is supposed to work. He’s written two books – ‘A Small Farm Future’ and ‘Saying No to a Farm-free Future’ – which are both grounded his belief that we need to develop low-energy localisms that give people the means to make practical and sustainable livelihoods. In this episode, Chris explains how the organisation of food systems is ultimately an energetic question; one that, in the modern era, has been answered by an over-reliance on cheap fossil fuels. He argues that, in a future of lesser energy abundance and mounting crises, localised food systems will be vital for survival. Chris encourages an embrace of agrarian localism not only to avoid chaotic disruption, but also to bring profound and immediate benefits to people and planet. Local Futures is an int

Debra Efroymson (Bangladesh/USA) is a tireless advocate for policies that support public health, wellbeing and happiness. She is the co-founder and Executive Director at Institute of Wellbeing, Bangladesh, and is faculty at the Asian University for Women. While her particular interests lie in urban planning and transportation, her holistic perspective leads her to envision profound transformations in economics, governance, and society as a whole.  In this episode, Debra calls into question things many of us take for granted – including how our cities are planned, how we get around, and what priorities shape development. She connects the idea of car-free cities to localization, and she explores the nitty gritty of policymaking and movement building, drawing on her personal experiences of David-and-Goliath struggles between activists and corporate power.    To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series   The music for this series is ‘Pines and Violet’, by Sky Toes.

Bayo Akomolafe (Nigeria) is a widely celebrated speaker, teacher, public intellectual and writer. In this episode, he “meanders the vortices of a world yet to come”, posing questions, sharing stories, and searching for the cracks in modernity. In his playful and poetic way, he encourages us to gather in these cracks – to participate in the emergence of what comes next. A one-of-a-kind thinker, Bayo blurs the lines between the personal and the political, prompting us to unlearn, rethink, and radically imagine our role in the world. He is the author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak. He is also the founder and curator of the Emergence Network and Chief Host of the course/festival series, We Will Dance with Mountains.   Local Futures is an international non-profit organization, dedicated to renewing ecological and social well-being by strengthening communities and loca

Ele Saltmarsh is a young farmer, scientist and activist. In this episode, she tells her family’s story of pursuing organic farming, and suggests big-picture policy frameworks that could provide avenues for the growing ranks who dream of a life connected to nature and to community. She also makes a powerful case for agroecology and localised economies for feeding the UK, and speaks candidly about community, climate crisis, and about her worries and hopes for the future. Ele comes from a small farm in Southern England, where she lives and practices agroecology. Since returning from her studies in biology and agricultural sciences at Oxford and Penn State Universities, she has worked with the Landworkers’ Alliance, and with a young farmers’ organisation called FLAME. She applies her research to show how the UK can feed itself sustainably, and campaigns for policies to support small farmers, food security, and real climate action.   To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series To

The second episode in the Planet Local Voices series features Manish Jain. A leading advocate for un-learning, de-schooling, and deepening place-based knowledge systems, Manish discusses why and how to rethink conventional education and conventional economic development. He points to a growing movement of 'walk-outs' and 'drop-outs' as a great reason for hope, as well as highlighting a rich tapestry of living cultures and knowledge systems that still exists around the world, despite the onslaught of globalization. Having 'unlearnt' the worldview imparted by an education at Harvard, and having 'walked out' from a job as an investment banker, Manish lands a heavy critique of the economic growth-for-the-rich, highlighting the importance of localization for rebuilding trust, and rediscovering real wealth and meaningful work. Based in Udaipur, India, Manish Jain has served as the coordinator of Shikshantar: The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development. He co-founded the Swaraj University, a un

Here's the first episode of Planet Local Voices – an interview series by Local Futures.   In this wide-ranging episode, economist, author and whistleblower John Perkins calls us to meet the defining challenge of our time – shifting from a "death economy" to a "life economy". He shares his own personal story of how he came to question the neoliberal worldview he'd been trained in, and discusses topics like empire and democracy, international relations, “free trade” treaties, redefining growth, embracing the local, and learning from indigenous cultures. John spent many years working to advance the interests of American corporations in Global South countries, at a time when neoliberal policies were being rolled out. Upon realizing the destructive ramifications of the work he was doing, he became an important whistleblower. His best-known book is 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man' (2004), which describes his role in a clandestine process of economic colonization at the behest of corporations, banks, and the Uni

In this episode, Helena Norberg-Hodge talks to Alnoor Ladha. Raised in Canada, Alnoor comes from a Sufi lineage, and today lives in community in Costa Rica. He is an important and incisive activist whose work brings together political organizing, systems thinking, structural change and narrative transformation. His conviction that the spiritual and political are fundamentally inseparable underpins his writings, which have been published in Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Truthout, Huffington Post and more. Alnoor was on the board of Greenpeace International, and has directed organizations such as The Rules and Culture Hack Labs, and is the co-author of Post Capitalist Philanthropy: The healing of wealth in the time of collapse. Helena and Alnoor have a deep friendship and a long-standing collaboration. In this episode, they explore politics and spiritualism together, and delve into their own philosophies of change, sketching a holistic political vision that goes beyond the left-right divide. They analyse the outra

In this episode, Helena Norberg-Hodge talks to Iain McGilchrist. Iain is a one-of-a-kind thinker, an Oxford literary scholar as well as a doctor in psychiatry and neuroscience. His interdisciplinary achievements reflect his conviction about the importance of holistic thinking – a topic he has explored in-depth in his two ground-breaking works, 'The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World', and, more recently, 'The Matter with Things'. In this conversation, Iain and Helena employ a big-picture lens to critique artificial intelligence, corporate globalization, and the profit-orientation of science and academia. They ask some hard questions about how things might change – through collapse, through movement-building, through grassroots action, or through a combination of these? And they also articulate insights into who we are as human beings, what constitutes genuine intelligence, and what a fulfilling life really entails.

In this episode, Helena Norberg-Hodge speaks with Charles Eisenstein. Charles is a pioneering storyteller of a new world – in his words, “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible”. His writings and talks, renowned for their eloquence, deal with civilizational history and mythmaking, new economies, spirituality, pandemics, power, climate change, ecological living, and – at the deepest level – who we are as human beings. This conversation examines truth, metaphysics, learning from traditional cultures, activism and more, exploring various aspects of the civilizational transformation at hand in a post-covid world. Together, Helena and Charles decry the power structures that continue to dominate modern global society, and share stories of hope from the grassroots.   Please write to info@localfutures.org with any comments and ideas for future topics/guests. Intro music by Gillicuddy (CC BY-NC 3.0).

In this episode, Helena Norberg-Hodge talks to her friend and colleague of 40 years, Vandana Shiva. Vandana trained as a quantum physicist, but turned her attention to campaigning for the rights of small farmers, seed savers and local communities in her home country of India when she witnessed the imposition of industrial agriculture and its tragic impacts on health, biodiversity and livelihoods. Today, she is one of the most powerful voices challenging corporate rule. In their conversation, Helena and Vandana reminisce about friends who inspired them both, delving deep into the stories and personalities of the environmental and anti-globalization movements. They explore the structures of corporate globalization - from its roots in colonialism to the present day - as well as ecofeminism, movement building and deep ecological wisdom. Their conversation highlights the importance of focusing on economic structures, on scale and on the power of people to build a better world from the ground up.   Please write to

In this newly published episode of the Local Futures podcast, Helena Norberg-Hodge talks to the renowned Dr. Gabor Maté. The two dispel false ideas about human nature and analyze the ways macro-level economic structures are impacting our personal identities. A remarkable and far-reaching compassion for people from all walks of life imbues their conversation.   See our new - Localization Action Guide. Please write to info@localfutures.org with any comments and ideas for future topics/guests. Intro music by Gillicuddy (CC BY-NC 3.0).

Described by journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” Jeremy Lent is the founder of the Liology Institute and the author of ‘The Patterning Instinct’ and, most recently, ‘The Web of Meaning’. His work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. In his own words, his work: “has been a journey of many years, during which I dedicated myself full time to deep research in disciplines such as neuroscience, history, and anthropology, and to exploring the great traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, Neo-Confucianism, and Indigenous wisdom.” In this conversation with Helena Norberg-Hodge, Jeremy unpacks many of the assumptions and world views that underpin modern society’s destructive trajectory. Together, they outline worldview transformations that contribute to a vision for a more sustainable and humane future – a future that both Helena and Jeremy truly believe to be within our grasp.   See our n

Brazilian researcher and activist Dr. Camila Moreno has attended almost all the major climate conferences in the last decade. In this conversation with Helena Norberg-Hodge, she offers a rare glimpse into the internal workings of the multilateral negotiations. She explains how the narrow focus on carbon is turning climate itself into a tradable commodity for profit, and how the "decarbonization" agenda is linked to technocracy and increased surveillance. We are left with greater clarity, and a stark choice between a human future and a high-tech dystopia. This is key listening for climate/environmental activists. See our new - Localization Action Guide. Please write to info@localfutures.org with any comments and ideas for future topics/guests. Intro music by Gillicuddy (CC BY-NC 3.0).

You would struggle to find three individuals more equipped to navigate the big picture of global economic mega-structures and civilizational transformation than Tyson, Alnoor and Helena. Between them, they share a wealth of diverse experiences, radical analysis and bold future-visioning, as well as a healthy dose of banter and laughter. Their far-reaching conversation analyses conspiracy theory, the global financial system and capitalist ideology, while outlining the power of localization and sacred activism to build a radically different future. This one is well worth a listen. Please write to info@localfutures.org with any comments and ideas for future topics/guests. Intro music by Gillicuddy (CC BY-NC 3.0).