10/07/2026
❓LET'S ASK:
Dr. Heide Göttner-Abendroth
🌿What would a society look like if it were guided not by the ideology of limitless growth, but by the needs of people and nature?
In her lecture, Globalization and Regionalization from a Matriarchal Perspective, Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth invites us to rethink fundamental assumptions about politics, economics, and social life. Drawing on matriarchal societies as women-centered, egalitarian, and consensus-based societies, she develops an alternative perspective on the challenges of our time.
🌳Her contribution explores the central role of the region. But what exactly is meant by a region? A region is not defined by abstract political borders, but by the natural, cultural, and historical connections among the people who live there. It is a human-scale social space in which people know one another, share common practices and traditions, and can participate directly in collective decision-making. In this sense, regions form the basis for transparent, participatory, and consensus-based forms of social organization.
🌱Organizing social and economic life on a regional basis has significant implications. Sustainable farming, for example, is rooted in regional subsistence economies that prioritize the well-being of people, animals, plants, and the land rather than profit maximization. Local and seasonal production reduces the ecological costs of global food transport while supporting biodiversity and healthy nutrition. In contrast, industrial agriculture and global agribusiness often lead to monocultures, environmental destruction, and the exploitation of small-scale producers, particularly women, who produce a significant share of the world's food.
🌾According to Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth, regionalism should not be confused with provincialism. Regions are not isolated or closed entities. While they are locally rooted and based on shared history, culture, and direct social relationships, they remain open to exchange, dialogue, and cooperation with other regions. People can live locally while communicating globally, thus combining regional self-sufficiency with intercultural exchange and mutual understanding.
👉Would you like to explore what a world organized on a human scale could look like? Then read the full lecture and discover a matriarchal perspective on globalization and regionalization.
https://matriforum.com/veranstaltungen/global-regional-katastrophal
🌟Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth is a philosopher, mother, and grandmother, and the founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies. Through her multi-volume work Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe, translated into numerous languages, she has researched and brought to light matriarchal societies from around the world, both past and present. In 1986, she founded the International Academy HAGIA for Modern Matriarchal Studies, which she continues to direct today. She is widely recognized as the world's leading expert in the field.
