Episode 20: Helena Norberg-Hodge - Local Futures and the Economics of Happiness

Linguist, author and film maker, Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the international non-profit organisation, Local Futures, a pioneer of the new economy movement, and the convenor of World Localization Day.

She is the author of several books, including ‘Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh’, an eye-opening tale of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”. Together with a film of the same title, Ancient Futures has been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold half a million copies.

Her latest book is ‘Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness’. Other publications include ‘Bringing the Food Economy Home’ and ‘From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture’.

Helena is also the producer of the award-winning documentary ‘The Economics of Happiness’.

Educated in Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the United States, Helena specialized in linguistics, including studies at the University of London and with Noam Chomsky at MIT. Her work, spanning almost half a century, has received the support of a wide range of international figures, including Jane Goodall, HH the Dalai Lama, HRH Prince Charles and Indira Gandhi.

From 1975, Helena worked with the people of Ladakh, to find ways of enabling their culture to meet the modern world without sacrificing social and ecological values. She was the first outsider in modern times to become fluent in the language.

She has helped to initiate localization movements on every continent, particularly in South Korea and Japan, and co-founded both the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network.

Helena is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award (aka the “Alternative Nobel Prize”), the Arthur Morgan Award and the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.”

Helena has lectured in seven languages and appeared in broadcast, print and online media worldwide, including MSNBC, The Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian. She has written numerous articles and essays, and her work has been the subject of thousands of articles worldwide.

Most recently, Helena was profiled in The New York Times, titled ‘What if Local and Diverse Is Better Than Networked and Global?’.

Download the article: NY Times – Helena Norberg-Hodge Profile (PDF)