In this conversation Ashish Kothari shares with GDF Director Nessie Reid his relationship to imagination and its integral role within his activism and environmental protection. An Indian environmentalist working at the interactions of biodiversity policy and radical alternatives, Ashish has spent over half a century dedicating his time to the field of environmental protection, community organising and ‘development’ in India. Guided by Nessie’s questions, Asish shares with us the role of dreams, the importance of giving oneself free time to imagine and the blurring of lines between leisure and work for nourishing radical alternatives and ecological models of democracy.

Ashish and Nessie discuss the Deccan Development Society as a practical, successful example of  a radical system of grassroot organising, re-commoning land and community spaces, and fighting for imaginal sovereignty.