An Economy of Right Relationship: Robin Wall Kimmerer & Kate Raworth in Conversation
Our mainstream economic system is modelled on scarcity and endless growth. But what would an economy look like that's inspired by the abundant generosity of a serviceberry tree: giving freely, circulating gifts, leaving enough for all?
More than 1,300 people registered to join us for the live conversation on September 30, bringing two of the most compelling thinkers of our time together to explore that question. In the spirit of the gift, we are now making the recording available for everyone. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry, and Kate Raworth, economist and author of Doughnut Economics, share a deep conviction: that our current economic system is out of alignment with the living world, and that reimagining it is both urgent and possible.
In The Serviceberry, Kimmerer draws on Raworth’s work as she weaves together Indigenous wisdom and economic thought to propose a gift economy rooted in enoughness, reciprocity, gratitude, and what she calls "practical reverence". For Kimmerer, nature is not simply to be protected from us; it calls us into relationship with it. She says: "Practical reverence offers almost a notion of redemption, to say: No, you are not just a taker, you are not a despoiler. You can be medicine, you can be medicine for the Earth. You can be a healer. You can participate in regenerative economies..." Practical reverence is a way of living that is at once deeply spiritual and entirely pragmatic. Harvesting, done honourably, is an act of kinship, and gratitude, practised seriously, is a radical act.
Kate Raworth's bestselling book "Doughnut Economics" and action labs offer the structural framework for this vision: an economy that meets the needs of all people while remaining within the planetary boundaries that make life possible. Together, they invite us to ask: what does an economy of right relationship look, feel, and live like? And how do we begin, here and now, to build it?
