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Listen to the Recording: Cloughjordan Ecovillage – Deep Listening Series | Episode 7

CHANGING THE STORY: COMMUNITY-LED SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION 

Lessons from Karl Polanyi 

Local communities have a key, critical role in making the sort of radical social transformation that we need to achieve global climate change goals. But we are far from clear about what this entails, and our governments seem reluctant to embrace the radical changes so urgently required. The work of Karl Polanyi, whose best-known book is ‘The Great Transformation’, offers a valuable framework to understand what such community-led transformation entails and how it is required for human well being and flourishing.

In this conversation ecovillage member Elizabeth O’Shea, who runs the independent bookshop Sheelagh na Gig, interviews Peadar Kirby, author of ‘Karl Polanyi and the Contemporary Political Crisis: Transforming Market Society in the Era of Climate Change’. The director of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy in Montreal, Prof. Marguerite Mendell, responds with her comments on the relevance of Polanyi’s insights to community-led social transformation.