Library

Scientific paper • 2020

Untangling the radical imaginaries of the Indignados’ movement: commons, autonomy and ecologism

Abstract: Under regimes of austerity, social movements´ transformative eco-politics may appear endangered. What kinds of environmentalism and radical imaginaries can unfold in social movements in crisis-ridden societies? I focus on the ‘movement of the squares’ during its post-encampment phase, with a case study of three urban projects of the Indignados movement in Barcelona. Observation of...

Misc • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - Advancing a Degrowth Agenda in the Corona Crisis

By: Matthias Schmelzer, Iris Frey, Andro Rilović, Stefania Barca, Eeva Houtbeckers

Panel debate The aim of this panel is to evaluate and discuss degrowth and it’s strategies in direct relation to the current corona crisis. We want to understand how the degrowth community responded so far to the crisis and how degrowth was and is present in recent discussions. The goal is then to identify potential pathways, but also barriers, for bringing forward the degrowth agenda in this...

Misc • 2020

How ‘Degrowth’ Pushes Climate and Well-Being Over GDP

By: Akshat Rathi

"In recent years, a group of economists, ecologists, and anthropologists has gained attention for trying to overturn a core tenet of economic policy — that growth is good for everyone. Known as the “degrowth” movement, these scholars suggest a reframing of humanity’s goals along ecological lines to address the climate crisis, along with a reconsideration of using gross domestic product as a...

Presentation • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - Car workers as political subjects of degrowth transformation

By: Patrik Gažo

Presentation [part of the standard session "Co-operatives, work and degrowth"] I argue that degrowth strategies should be focused more on the industrial sectors and on those who work there. More concretely, the automotive industry is economically-speaking one of the most important sectors in Central Europe, with car workers having great potential to be a transformational force. Presenters:...

Presentation • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - A framework to move policy-making in the EU beyond growth

By: Jonathan Barth

Presentation [part of the standard session "Institutional Change 2"] The session introduces an online toolbox to guide policy-making beyond growth. Based on a literature review, we structure post-growth policies along 17 objectives, 101 transformative changes and 260 instruments. The framework shows what means other than economic growth can achieve political ends. Presenters: Jonathan Barth...

Presentation • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - A Green New Deal without growh

By: Riccardo Mastini

Presentation [part of the standard session "Institutional Change 2"] The Green New Deal offers a powerful vision for how to deploy industrial policies to coordinate the overhaul of a country’s energy system and decarbonize its manufacturing and agricultural sectors. However given the elusiveness of absolute decoupling degrowth policies must accompany this transition. Presenters: Riccardo...

Misc • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - Bursting Platform

By: Maša Hawlina, Asja Hrvatin, Nicoleta Nour, Sara Pistotnik, Lana Zdravković, Ajda Pistotnik

Special session Bursting Platform is bringing under a spotlight feminization of politics and exploration of possibilities of co-creating and opening a new political space – a platform for building stronger connections between various initiatives, places, women activists covering diverse, but relevant topics that bring into effect needed new alliances. Five themes will be presented by five...

Presentation • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - Book Presentation: “Cities of Dignity” and “Towards a Political Economy of Degrowth”

By: Max Koch, Emanuele Leonardi, Giorgos Velegrakis, Stefania Barca, Mabrouka Mbarek

Special session “Cities of Dignity” presents seven successful strategies of such urban transformation toward more democratic, sustainable, socially equitable and antipatriarchal relations from below in a series of case studies: the self-determination and organization of slum dwellers in Buhj in India; Black-led urban commons in Birmingham, Jackson, and Detroit in the U.S.; the San Roque...

Misc • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - Degrowth and European Politics 1: “How do we deal with the European Green Deal?”

By: Tone Smith, Jagoda Munić, Aurore Lalucq, Pawel Wargan

Panel discussion We will discuss what’s currently happening on EU level regarding “greening the economy” (mainly within the European Green Deal frame). Taking into account literature dealing with EU and national policies in the context of degrowth we want to make the practical challenges of navigating the realities of the European political system transparent. With this consecutive session we...

Scientific paper • 2020

Discourses of degrowth: New value systems for global environmental governance?

By: Lucy Ford, Gabriela Kuetting

The Global Environmental Politics literature tends to focus on institutional and governance frameworks as the solution to global environmental problems rather than on the systemic constraints that limit the potential effectiveness of governance efforts. Part of the problem with institutional frameworks to reform global environmental governance is insufficient attention paid to deeper structural...

Scientific paper • 2020

Public health and degrowth working synergistically: what leverage for public health?

By: Marie-Jo Ouimet, Pier-Luc Turcotte, Louis-Charles Rainville, Yves-Marie Abraham, David Kaiser, Icoquih Badillo-Amberg

The climate crisis represents the biggest public health threat of our time. It interacts with the rising inequalities, chronic diseases and mental illness widely associated with our dominant economic system. Though degrowth and public health approaches differ, both share common values. The former proposes a new paradigm intended to halt the destruction of life-supporting systems by infinite...

Scientific paper • 2019

Activities of degrowth and political change

By: Pasi Heikkurinen, Pierre Tosi, Jana Lozanoska

Abstract: Hannah Arendt's three-fold conceptualization of human activity offers a useful base for understanding the necessity of degrowth and the kinds of activities required to achieve it. The article argues that the different roles of labour, work, and action should be acknowledged and scrutinized in detail to appreciate the underpinnings of contemporary over-production and over-consumption,...

Report • 2019

The Green New Deal for Europe: a blueprint for Europe's just transition

By: Giorgos Kallis, Riccardo Mastini, Giacomo D'Alisa, Emanuele Leonardi, Dirk Ehnts, Bill McKibben, Jason Hickel, Stefania Barca, Teresa Anderson, Grace Blakeley, Friedrich Bohn, Sam Bright, Nick Dearden, Nicoletta Dentico, Laura C. Zanetti-Domingues, Skender Fani, Julia Fish, Charlotte Hanson, Nick Jacobs, Tessa Khan, Mat Lawrence, Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Ruth London, Julian Brave NoiseCat, David Powell, Jérémy Rodrigues, Jakob Schäfer, Christoph Schneider, Giovanna Sissa, Isaac Stanley, Will Stronge, Sean Sweeney

Europe today confronts two crises. The first is an economic crisis, with rising levels of poverty, insecurity, and homelessness across the continent. The second is a climate and environmental crisis, with severe consequences for Europe’s front-line communities and even more perilous ones on the horizon. Both crises are the products of Europe’s political decisions, and they are closely bound...

Scientific paper • 2019

Climate justice, commons, and degrowth

By: Patricia E. Perkins

Abstract: Economic inequality reduces the political space for addressing climate change, by producing fear-based populism. Only when the safety, social status, and livelihoods of all members of society are assured will voluntary, democratic decisions be possible to reverse climate change and fairly mitigate its effects. Socio-environmental and climate justice, commoning, and decolonization are...

Misc • 2019

Defending limits is not Malthusian

By: Giorgos Kallis

"Self-limitation is not about constraining, but about defining collectively as societies our limits." This blogpost introduces the key ideas of Giorgos Kallis' new book Limits. Why Malthus was wrong and why environmentalists should care (Stanford University Press, 2019)

Scientific paper • 2019

Global Climate Emergency: after COP24, climate science, urgency, and the threat to humanity

By: Barry Gils, Jamie Morgan

This Special Editorial on the Climate Emergency makes the case that although we are living in the time of Global Climate Emergency we are not yet acting as if we are in an imminent crisis. The authors review key aspects of the institutional response and climate science over the past several decades and the role of the economic system in perpetuating inertia on reduction of greenhouse gas...

Scientific paper • 2019

Alternative and Resistance Movements: The Two Faces of Sustainability Transformations?

By: Léa Sébastien, Jérôme Pelenc, Nicolas Merveille, Grégoire Wallenborn, Julien Milanesi, Julien Vastenaekels, Fany Lajarthe, Jérôme Ballet, Manuel Cervera-Marzal, Aurélie Carimentrand, Bruno Frère

This article addresses the issue of sustainability transformations in Ecological Economics through the lens of social movements, by linking environmental resistance movements and alternative movements. We advocate for a more politicized, social-movement oriented and place-based approach to sustainability transformations, and contribute to the development of a more political and emancipatory...

Scientific paper • 2019

Tourism and degrowth: an emerging agenda for research and praxis

By: Robert Fletcher, Asunción Blanco-Romero, Macià Blázquez-Salom, Ivan Murray Mas

Abstract: This article outlines a conceptual framework and research agenda for exploring the relationship between tourism and degrowth. Rapid and uneven expansion of tourism as a response to the 2008 economic crisis has proceeded in parallel with the rise of social discontent concerning so-called “overtourism.” Despite decades of concerted global effort to achieve sustainable development,...

Misc • 2019

Towards a Political Economy of Degrowth

By: Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Alexander Paulsson, Stefania Barca

Since the 1970s, the degrowth idea has been proposed by scholars, public intellectuals and activists as a powerful call to reject the obsession of neoliberal capitalism with economic growth, an obsession which continues apace despite the global ecological crisis and rising inequalities. In the past decade, degrowth has gained momentum and become an umbrella term for various social movements...

Scientific paper • 2019

A critically modern ecological economics for the Anthropocene

By: Jon D. Erickson, Michael B. Wironen

Ecological economics recognizes economic activity as a biophysical process mediated by social systems and ultimately subject to the constraints of a finite earth system. The Anthropocene discourse appears as validation of the central concerns of ecological economics yet throws into relief its limits as a normative transdiscipline oriented toward social transformation. We review ecological...