Library

Scientific paper • 2012

Participation "Big Style": First Experiences with the German Citizens’ Dialogue on Energy Technologies for the Future.

From the text: The project “Bürgerdialoge“ (“citizens’ dialogues”) initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research aims to incorporate the perspectives of citizens regarding future technologies. Germany’s highly discussed withdrawal from nuclear energy and the accompanied fundamental changes in energy production were subjects of eight regional dialogues (with about 100...

Scientific paper • 2012

The Valley that accepts to drown but not to die – Environmental and social (in)justice along the Narmada River (Central India)

By: Daniela Del Bene

From the text: This paper is being written as a non-violent struggle is occuring in the Narmada Valley in Central India, where hundreds of villages face the threat of being flooded by the reservoir waters of the Omkareshwar Dam. More than 10 activists have been staying in the Narmada waters over the past ten days with water up to their necks. They are shouting slogans like “We will fight, we...

Scientific paper • 2012

Towards convergence

By: Philippe Léna

From the text: We can observe today a strong resistance to the idea of degrowth among emergent or developing countries. This proposal is often considered, among them, as a typical ideology of industrialized and rich countries. At national level, the idea of degrowth is denounced as a reactionary and upper class ideology. It is a well-known argument used by productivists, either from the right...

Scientific paper • 2012

Grabbing of natural resources and environmental justice: breaking the circle

By: Annalisa Stagni, Mani Tese

Abstract: The consumption pattern in the north requires an intensive exploitation of natural resources in the south of the world, making some countries totally depending from the sale of their natural resources. The global north needs to stop consumption without limits of our environment and people must be aware that these limits exist, due to the finiteness of our world. Our lifestyles have a...

Scientific paper • 2012

Political participation. A way toward degrowth.

By: Marco Boffi

Abstract: Degrowth supports a sober and convivial vision of life through principles encouraging equality and social relations. The cultural perspective it proposes is conceived also as the starting point for a concrete political action, and political subjects based on such ideas has risen in several countries. These principles play a key role in favoring citizens’ participation in public life,...

Scientific paper • 2012

From economism to autonomy: a value reading of the "Greek crisis"

By: Panos Petridis

Abstract: The density of events over the last years, together with the continuous scaremongering from the dominant political and media circles, has put the Greek society into an informal “economic state of exception”. Austerity measures and neoliberal policies such as large scale privatisations, under the name of “reform” or “modernisation” are presented as a painful but necessary evil and a...

Scientific paper • 2012

Reflexions about how to build a degrowth process in Brazil

By: Mildred Gustack Delambre, Alan Ainer Boccato-Franco, Edson Franco

Keywords: Solidarity Economy, Political strategy, participatory transition, degrowth process, social movements

Scientific paper • 2012

Morin, Beck and Latouche: for an ecology of action in the light of degrowth

By: Fabrizio Li Vigni

Keywords: Edgar Morin, Ulrich Beck, Serge Latouche, ecology of action, wager, strategy, precautionary principle, upstream action, degrowth.

Scientific paper • 2012

Different economies in harmony with life today: from practices to social changes

By: Antonia De Vita

From the text: 3. The objectives of the research project were: - to identify the educational and participatory processes, self-training and training processes that currently exist in emerging economies; - to find out what entities are represented or self-represented in communities that have put into practice emerging economic practices; - to identify any possible impact or repercussions...

Scientific paper • 2012

Sustainable Development and the Cultural Contradictions of High Modernity: Beyond Brundtland and Limits to Growth

By: Thomas Wallgren

Abstract: The new green movement that appeared in the 1960s and 1970s claimed that because of objective limits economic growth had become a false development goal. The claim is interpreted as a claim about an intrinsic tension between two cultural aspirations fundamental to the project of high modernity, ethical universalism and increasing material prosperity for all. Since the mid 1980s the...

Scientific paper • 2012

Buen Vivir and Beyond: Searching for a New Paradigm of Action

By: Ana Agostino, Franziska Dübgen

From the text: A Language of opposition, once turned into a principle of governance changes its appearance. On the one hand, the social activist necessarily bases her intervention on the vision of a better state of affairs. Hence, her intellectual work is grounded in counter-narratives of what a different, alternative world should look like with the ultimate aim of transforming reality towards...

Scientific paper • 2012

Pachakuti: Indigenous perspectives, buen vivir, sumaq kawsay and degrowth

By: Bob Thomson

Abstract: I show that understanding the limits to growth for our finite planet is slowly gaining currency due to the (mostly) European sustainable degrowth ‘movement’ and a plurinational Latin American cosmovision which is largely indigenous but also criollo. These visions challenge us to decolonize our minds, as well as our economies. I introduces a number of writers and perspectives on...

Scientific paper • 2012

From Green Urban Economy to a Network of Autopoietic Region-Cities: a strategy for a sustainable economy under the scenario of degrowth

By: Sergi Nuss

Abstract: Between October 2011 and April 2012 the author has conducted research with ICLEI Europe on the Green Economy approach of 6 cities active in local climate change and energy, namely: Almada (Portugal), Arendal (Norway), Bologna (Italy), Girona (Spain), Jerusalem (Israel) and Turku (Finland). These cities not only cover a wide geographical area, but also a broad cultural, economical and...

Scientific paper • 2012

District Future – Urban Lab

By: Oliver Parodi, Alexandra Quint, Andreas Seebacher

Keywords: Degrowth, Sufficiency, Sustainable urban development, Sustainable Development, Urban Sustainability, Integrative Concept of Sustainable Development, District Development

Scientific paper • 2012

The Swedish urban typologies in the city of Karlstad: neighbourhood conceptualizations and typologies for urban development and transformation in the 21 st century

By: Todor Stojanovski

Abstract: Many Swedish as many European cities experienced a similar history of urbanization, architectural styles and planning paradigms. Most of the Swedish neighbourhoods originate or were modified in the 20th century and many of them, often copyrighted by architects and planners, have been preserved as they were designed. The fundamental urban challenge in this century is to find ways of...

Scientific paper • 2012

Beni Comuni: un catalizzatore per i movimenti?

By: Mario Agostinelli

Contribution to the 3rd International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Venice in 2012. - only available in Italian

Scientific paper • 2012

A European Citizens’ Initiative for implementation of The human right to water and sanitation in European law.

By: Jerry van den Berge

Summary: The United Nations have recognised the universal human right to water and sanitation on 28 July 2010, through Resolution 64/292. In this resolution the UN acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are key factors to the accomplishment of all human rights. The Resolution calls upon States and international organisations to provide financial resources, help in...

Scientific paper • 2012

PROVE: degrowing the use of natural resources for food production

By: João Luís Homem de Carvalho

From the text: According to IBGE (2010), from 2000 to 2010, over 400,000 small farms went bankrupt, pushing about 2 million people away from rural zones toward big cities, and causing serious social problems. One of the reasons for this exodus is the agribusiness production model, based on “technological packets” and on the production of commodities for export. It uses genetic modified...

Scientific paper • 2012

Sustainability and New Visions of Consumers Sovereignty and Utility

By: Roberta Sassatelli

From the text: In his widely known work La société de consommation, the French cultural critic Jean Baudrillard thus summed up contemporary society: ‘Just as medieval society was balanced on God and the Devil, so ours is balanced on consumption and its denunciation’. The notion of the consumer, contested as it has always been, has itself become an important cultural category. Especially from...

Scientific paper • 2012

Decolonizing the imaginary, beginning from school

By: Paolo Scroccaro

From the text: What is the purpose of a fragmented ecological education if the remaining subjects are still dominated by the anti-ecological and “progress at all costs” ideology that acritically adopts a model of rationality that is partly responsible for the devastation of the Earth, when this is precisely what ecology tries to expose? The following speech is meant to contribute towards an...