Lilian Pungas is an activist-scholar in the broad field of political ecology & degrowth and the board/coordinator of the German Wachstumswende plattform. As a postdoc researcher she works at the CEU for the REMASS project in which she explores various global agri-food case studies as crucial provisioning systems for human wellbeing.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of critical agrarian/food studies, ecofemism/care and decolonial postsocialist studies. Originally from Estonia yet based in Vienna & Berlin she is also part of various collectives, such as the Polička, ‘Eastern Blues’ and ‘Unleashing Fantasy for Transformation’ collective for utopianizing degrowth and creating transformative spaces.
Within all these constellations she brings together her transdisciplinary focus and engaged research around the topics of food, social-ecological provisioning from/in the East as well as her passion for a simple sufficieny-oriented (dacha) life – the ‘Eastern’ buen vivir. The latter (Dachas for Future. Examples from the East for living and surviving well, 2024) was also her dissertation project which she continues working with.