Library

Scientific paper • 2014

Saving Money – Breaking Profit? Ride-Sharing Practices in Inter-City Transport

Abstract: This contribution examines how the infrastrucutre and ticketing of inter-city railway transport leads to entrepreneurial practices of ride-sharing and asks if this twofold practice (it allows saving money and gaining money) also contains the potential of articulating economic visions of degrowth. The background for these new forms of transportation-entrepreneurialism is the ongoing...

Scientific paper • 2014

Railway transport and social-ecological transformation in Germany

By: Hannes Fauser

Abstract: This short paper summarizes the development of railway services in Germany in the past two decades, which have been marked by commercialization, increased competition and attempts of privatization. I argue that these policies are misled from a social-ecological perspective and have only modestly performed in terms of shifting passengers and cargo towards railway transportation. The...

Scientific paper • 2014

Time use in an Alternative Degrowth Society

By: Wolfgang Fellner

Abstract: A time use perspective in economics has to recognise that time is more than an input to commodities, produced by households. Time is not money! If anything, time is life. How we spend our time provides us with skills as well as information. It determines the formation of habits and preferences. The activities we pursue with great motivation and enthusiasm, be it paid work or any other...

Scientific paper • 2014

Discussion of the new Portuguese sustainability experiences

By: Lúcia Fernandes

Abstract: The work aims to present the general aspects of a recently started postdoctoral research project at the Research Centre in Sociological and Organizational Sociology (SOCIUS) and the Centre for Social Studies (CES), Portugal. Some empirical data is from the research project Communication and Political Engagement with Environmental Issues - COMPOLIS (I am part of the project research...

Scientific paper • 2014

Sustainable Finances for Society: The consideration of a Certification Program

By: Blanca Fernandez

Abstract: Sustainable development is an ongoing process based on a set of principles that have to continue to spread throughout all economic activities. Looking at the current economic scenario, the transformation of the financial sector appears crucial. I first define a working definition of sustainable finances. Powerful drivers towards sustainable practices in strong profit-oriented markets...

Scientific paper • 2014

Degrowth and the domination of nature

By: Arianna Ferrari

Abstract: Despite the fact that degrowth theorists offer different analyses of the concept of nature, they share the belief that it is necessary to overcome the idea of a strict divide between subject (the human being) and object (the environment). They challenge the belief in technological progress as providing solutions to any problem, promote a social, fair and ecological perspective and...

Scientific paper • 2014

Accountability, Democracy, and Post-growth: Civil Society Rethinking Political Economy and Finance.

By: Lorenzo Fioramonti

Economic crisis, civil society, social change, accountability, degrowth

Scientific paper • 2014

Gross Domestic Problem: The Politics Behind the World's Most Powerful Number

By: Lorenzo Fioramonti

GDP; power; war; markets; economists; globalization

Scientific paper • 2014

Between Daily Practices and Political Action

By: Markus Flück

Abstract: My starting point is that the “green revolution” and free trade policies haven’t been successful towards solving hunger problems and might even endanger the nutrition system of the whole human society. On the consumption side, especially in the north, but also in the wealthy social classes in the south, feeding habits need more and more energy and produce too much rubbish. A hopeful...

Scientific paper • 2014

Body-Scale: Somaticity, Degrowth, and the Revival of Place

By: Kris Forkasiewicz

Abstract: The paper deals with the following questions: —How the "full-bodied" quality of lived meaning diminishes for the anthropoi with the growth of institutions and infrastructures beyond its somatic grasp —How, accordingly, lived experience is impoverished and flattened —How with growth, what is commonly imagination, rather than being the celebrated paragon of human nature, constitutes a...

Scientific paper • 2014

Debt, Disparity, Discipleship and the end of the growth imperative

By: Ray Foss

Abstract: Visions and strategies for transformation into economic sustainability are utterly dependent upon dynamics of the social order’s predominant value system. Shareable values require actionable HOLISM – the idea that both properties and functioning of the social system must be a viewed as wholes that cannot be fully understood in terms of their components. Paradigm shifts and progression...

Scientific paper • 2014

The liberation of human and non-human world and the critique of instrumental rationality: Degrowth and Green Critical Theory

By: Anne Fremaux

Critical theory, degrowth, domination, human and non-human nature, instrumental reason, liberation

Scientific paper • 2014

How does the monetary system work, does it require economic growth, and are there monetary policy options allowing degrowth?

By: Christoph Freydorf

Abstract: Degrowth strategies are not only depending on political decisions, but also on concepts of economic orders which permit the expectation to be stable and prosperous without the necessity of nominal or real (throughput of natural resources) growth rates. One important aspect is the monetary policy, which is widely suspected to play a crucial role for both, the necessity to growth as...

Scientific paper • 2014

Linking resource efficiency to new measurement of well-being

By: Vera Freyling

Abstract: The presentation is part of the special session “Resource efficiency Beyond GDP”. Improving resource efficiency generally means maximizing produced value, while minimizing pressures and impacts of economic production. In the GDP-era we wholly consider produced value in quantifying gains of economic activities, in other words, praising the quantities of all produced final and...

Scientific paper • 2014

The power of neighborhood – rethinking the way of life within co-housing projects in Switzerland

By: Sanna Frischknecht

Abstract: Focusing on the question of how people live and interact, co-housing projects, such as “Kraftwerk1”, “Nena1” and others attempt to withdraw imperatives of growth by establishing a new way of life in urban contexts. Some of the projects are closely connected to the ideas of an urban utopia “bolo’bolo” which was written by P.M. in the 1980ies. This ideal of a new way of life describes a...

Scientific paper • 2014

Towards a sustainable society: Concept for an alternative economic system

By: Thomas Frisius

Abstract: The current capitalistic economic system is very prone to crises, social inequity and waste of natural resources. In combination, this threatens the means of livelihood for future generations and is, therefore, at variance with a sustainable development. An alternative economic system is proposed with the potential to overcome these difficulties. In this system, international trade is...

Scientific paper • 2014

the potential of permaculture teachers as change agents for a sustainable modernity

By: Max Gaedtke

Abstract: Subject of this paper is to analyse the potential of permaculture teachers as change agents for a sustainable modernity. The theoretical basis of the work is the change agent approach by KRISTOF (2010). Permaculture is presented as a sustainable design approach. The change agent approach is used as a framework. The methodology consists of qualitative interviews with teachers and...

Scientific paper • 2014

Sumak Kawsay: Living non-‐capitalist values in a capitalist world.

By: Lucia Gallardo

Sumak Kawsay, anti-capitalist, Eurocentric, indigenous women, non-capitalist values, emergence and time

Scientific paper • 2014

Comparing local and global supply chains of tomatoes: the case of Catalonia

By: Gonzalo Gamboa

Abstract: In recent years there is an increasing interest in studying the performance of the so-called alternative, local or quality food supply chains. Different actors, endorsing different discourses, highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each supply chain according to their interests and their position in the chain (among other reasons). This paper explores the performance of global...

Scientific paper • 2014

Environmental movements and commoning strategies in Puerto Rico: challenging the growth paradigm?

By: Gustavo Garcia-Lopez

de-growth, common-pool resources, social movements, community-based resource management