E-book: City & Ecology: Dialogues with Brian Tokar and Dimitris Roussopoulos (Aftoleksi, 2022). It is an English version of the Greek original.
In this edition, the editorial team of Aftoleksi talks to Brian Tokar and Dimitris Roussopoulos, two influential figures from the North American movement for social ecology – a theoretical body that focuses on the direct relationship between the political organization of society and our attitudes towards nature.
Key topics of discussion include climate change, energy management, the imaginary of economic growth, and the right to the city. In our own historical era, the character of urgency is appropriate as global warming is now an inescapable horizon. In the face of ecological and social catastrophe, the concept of climate justice, introduced by Tokar himself, is more relevant than ever.
We are also discussing the city and the possibility of building networks of solidarity and direct democracy in the urban fabric, recreating the free public space with democratic institutions of self-government. Rousopoulos’ account of his experience, from the self-managed neighbourhood of Milton Parc in Montreal, and the project of libertarian minucipalism is a historical legacy for contemporary movements.
We undertook this project as we firmly believe that ecological and urban issues are vital to the present and future of our presence on the planet. And we have chosen to speak with these thinkers, who have been warning for decades about the destructive direction of our societies, proposing a radical way forward towards a direct-democratic and ecological social institution.
Participants in the dialogues: Ioanna Maravelidi, Peter Piperkov, Dimitris Roussopoulos, Alexandros Schismenos, Yavor Tarinski, Brian Tokar.
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Brian Tokar has been involved in the US movements since the 1970s. He is a former director of the Institute for Social Ecology co-founded by Murray Bookchin himself, with whom he was a collaborator. He teaches at the University of Vermont and lectures internationally on the connection between environmental and social movements. He is the author of several books, among which is Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change (New Compass, 2014).
Dimitris Roussopoulos is a historic figure of the North American libertarian movement since 1959, author of numerous books, among which Political Ecology: System Change Not Climate Change (Black Rose Books, 2018). He is still active in the libertarian municipalist movement in Canada. He is the founder of the historical publishing house Black Rose Books and a member of TRISE (International Institute of Social Ecology).
