Oikonomia Camp: (De)colonization

Agape Oikonomia Camp
Theme: (De)colonization
Location: Agape Centro Ecumenico, Prali (TO), Italy
Dates: 18–23 August 2024

Overview

Why is it so difficult to grasp the complexities of colonialism and coloniality?
Why do so many people live unquestioningly within systems that continue to oppress, damage, and dehumanize—while simultaneously believing in the superiority of some over others?

If we are all equal beings, as most humans intuitively believe, how could such systems persist? And how do colonialism and coloniality intersect with our ideas of nature and humanity’s inability to confront the planetary ecological crisis it has produced?

To address these questions, the Agape Oikonomia Camp 2024 invites participants to a five-day collective journey exploring how colonialism shapes our everyday lives, our identities, our opportunities, and our relationships—both at micro and macro scales.

Description

Throughout the camp, we will explore colonialism and coloniality as lived realities: not only as historical and structural processes, but as emotional, psychological, economic, and political forces that continue to shape the present.

On the one hand, we will focus on inner dimensions—the emotions and sentiments that emerge from living within systems of domination. We will reflect on the psychological nuances of oppression: the oppressor and the oppressed, internalized hierarchies, and the subtle ways in which colonial patterns may appear in our personal lives, sometimes even unconsciously.

We will ask:

• How do we experience coloniality in our everyday lives?
• How does it shape our identities, relationships, and sense of self?
• In what ways might we reproduce the very structures we seek to challenge?

On the other hand, we will examine how colonialism continues to structure economic, political, and social macro-systems. Why do contemporary political and economic systems remain rooted in histories of exploitation and abuse? How do neoliberal logics become internalized and enacted, reinforcing colonial dynamics even in post-colonial contexts?

Central questions guiding the camp include:

• What does it mean to be the “Other” in a world fundamentally shaped by colonial histories?
• Is it possible to break free from these structures?
• Can we imagine—and enact—a decolonised society?
• Are we willing to begin by decolonising our own minds?

Approach

This camp emphasizes non-formal education, collective reflection, and embodied learning. Participants are invited to step outside their comfort zones and engage creatively and critically with the evolving patterns of colonialism and coloniality.

Through:

• discussions and debates
• collaborative workshops
• movement, dance, and play
• writing, storytelling, and shared living

we aim to create a space where thinking, feeling, and being come together.

The camp brings together an international and diverse group of participants, encouraging learning across differences and experiences. Educational background, nationality, or formal expertise are not prerequisites. What matters is curiosity, openness, and the willingness to engage with a complex but fundamental phenomenon that shapes humanity’s past, present, and future.

Invitation

We invite you to join us on this journey—not as students or experts, but as human beings—questioning inherited structures, challenging internalized assumptions, and collectively exploring what it might mean to decolonise our minds.

Together, we will experiment with ways to resist, rethink, and transform the chains that colonialism and coloniality continue to place on our lives and communities.