Blog
Pathways to social & environmental justice in a post-capitalist world
Introduction
Humanity is at a crossroads. Most people still don't realize the significance of Israel's genocide on the Palestinian people and the complicity of most Western governments, in terms of what it has revealed and unleashed. Why are we unable to put a stop of this horrific slaughter of a people, the endless murder, traumatization, and starvation of children, the deliberate torture of civilians, and the complicity of our own governments using our tax money to support Israel instead of instating a total boycott on this genocidal state? We are being held hostage by the relentlessly destructive and violent greed of the world’s elites, who stop at nothing to control the narrative, to silence dissent, and to block uprisings. All over the world, they are beating up and locking up protesters, they are strengthening laws to imprison activists for years, they are sending cops to military training camps in Israel, and they are boosting the military industrial complex to new heights. In the meantime, the escalation of climate crises is bound to lead to complete chaos, complete breakdown of the world’s systems.
While it is all already horrifcally disastrous, it will definitely get much worse. That doesn't mean we can't still hit the brakes. In order to do so, however, we will need to get real very fast. The burning question is, will we allow ourselves to be herded-in under totalitarian fascist control, or will we seize any opportunity to challenge status quo and choose another path, to live in true solidarity with each other and with the planet? I think we need to decisively commit to nothing less than the dismantling of capitalism and put a stop to the associated colonial theft of land and resources, the exploitation of people for labor and consumption, and the oppression or extermination of anyone getting in the way. We need to stop treading cautiously, stop assuming that we can reason with the aggressors, or that we can save the world with better policies for human rights and the environment. We have seen that none of that is working. October 7th has caused the masks to fall off and it has become extremely clear just how much violence can be unleashed onto civilian populations, onto children, with no one either willing or able to stop it.
So what are we going to do about it? First and foremost, many, many more people need to become aware and enraged. Secondly, we need to be critical of our strategies and be imaginative and creative to find new ways to do activism that is surprising, destabilizing, and wonderful all at once. Thirdly, we need the same imagination and creativity, as well as persistance against cooptation, to form and embrace new (or perhaps old) ways of human organization, and to break with the state structures that have historically been deeply intertwined with capitalist & colonial agenda’s. And fourthly, we need to establish structures of deep solidarity between liberation movements to exchange information and skills, as well as financial and moral support. This includes taking the responsibility to educate ourselves and each other about the various ways colonized, enslaved, and oppressed people have resisted and organized, most of all by reading the work of BIPOC activists and scholars.
It is my mission to contribute to these four aims and I hope to do so, in part, through this blog. I have currently posted a few older posts that I have originally written in 2023-2024, and new work is in the making.
In the past years, every time I planned to join a climate action, I asked myself whether I could do something creative beyond writing an improvised sign with marker on a shoddy piece of cardboard in the train on the way to the event, but I never found the time or inspiration. I consider artivism not just a valuable way to strengthen a social movement, but also as resistance against those capitalist forces pushing us all into the straightjacket of obedient, productive, and mindless consumerism and citizenship. So as soon as I found a window of time, I did some research and got creative at home for the next climate action! In this blog post, I describe my recent experiences building a big paper-mâché vampire head and making a protest sign, with practical tips.
Originally published 21 February 2024; reposted here on 9 August 2025
Ever since I started joining climate protests, I have been intrigued by the role of visuals and creative actions. Activists regularly come up with funny costumes, crazy constructions, beautifully made signs, and catchy slogans. Sometimes there is even a choreographed performance or a band singing protest songs. All this creativity adds strength to the movement, for example by conveying a sense of urgency, pointing to outrageous power relations, or revealing how ridiculous things we take for granted can be, doing so in ways that really grabs the attention. Such combinations of art and activism are often referred to as artivism. In this blog post, I discuss artivism and share some inspiring examples and helpful resources.
Originally published 21 February 2024; reposted here on 9 August 2025
Apart from the shorter blurb about myself in About Karin, I want to get a little bit more real here and share some of my struggles throughout my professional trajectory. My CV may seem fascinating and somewhat impressive, or so I have heard, but the format hides a path filled with frustrations and rejections in my efforts to pursue a meaningful career. We don't often talk about these things, because we feel shame in failure and rejection. My career illustrates how difficult it is to find your path when you are critical about the ways societal problems are analyzed and managed.
Originally published 11 August 2023; revised, updated & reposted here on 9 August 2025
