Abstract
This article highlights the importance of the concept of ‘freedom to stay’ (Bleibefreiheit) as developed by philosopher Eva von Redecker, facing the accelerated climate crisis, the unbroken dynamics of capitalism, and the growing right-wing extremism. ‘Freedom to stay’ means the ecological autonomy to remain in places that allow for the collective production of critical subjectivity. While von Redecker unfolds this concept in dialogue with feminism and critical theory (from Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt to Rahel Jaeggi), the present article highlights the importance in this context of ‘vitalist Marxism’ in the sense of Georges Canguilhem and Gilles Deleuze, as well as institutional psychotherapy in the sense of Jean Oury and Félix Guattari. Only when the ‘fullness of time’ von Redecker invokes so elegantly is explicitly linked to the institutional struggles for social time can discourses about the ‘freedom to stay’ become crucially convincing.
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