Library

Scientific paper • 2016

Are we there yet?

The SOLIKON 2015 was a Berlin-based international congress on solidarity economy and social-ecological transformation. From Sept 5 to Sept 13, it gathered 1.400 people under the slogan “We know other ways!” Activists, practitioners, multipliers and individual participants discussed a variety of approaches, visions, examples and possible lines of convergence of an alternative economy for...

Scientific paper • 2016

Between revolution and reform

By: Jan C. Zoellick

Degrowth is a conglomerate of several streams of thought offering a variety of sometimes conflicting positions (Demaria et al., 2013). Some of these tensions smoulder inexplicitly below the surface of celebrated diversity. This proposal explicates the tension between conservative and reformist approaches on the one hand and revolutionary approaches driving for fundamental change on the other...

Scientific paper • 2016

Degrowth: A “missile word” that backfires?

By: Miklós Antal

Language use and cognition are generally underappreciated topics in alternative economics, even if effective communication is essential for social and political impact. To challenge the economic growth paradigm, the concept and term degrowth has recently been embraced by various activists and scholars. Drawing on a body of evidence from cognitive science, psychology and related fields, we argue...

Scientific paper • 2016

Degrowth in movement(s)

By: Nina Treu, Ashish Kothari, Silke Helfrich, Irmi Salzer

Degrowth is not only a label for an ongoing discussion on alternatives, and not just an academic debate, but also an emerging social movement. Regardless of many similarities, there is quite some lack of knowledge about the different perspectives both within degrowth circles as well as within other social movements. Here, space for learning emerges – also to avoid the danger of repeating...

Scientific paper • 2016

Grassroots movements in Hungary.

By: Zoltan Ferencz

The emerging environmental problems in the 1960s and 1970s were the basis for “Grassroots movements”. The explicit focus on ecological and social sustainability, which is a defining characteristic of ecovillages, arose in the 1990s. In earlier communities, of course, there had been efforts to live in ways that were ecological and in close contact with nature, but the specific sustainability...

Scientific paper • 2016

Has degrowth outgrown its own name? In defence of an ugly frame.

By: Joan Martinez-Alier, Federico Demaria, Filka Sekulova, Francois Schneider

Degrowth was first used and find its roots in the 1970s debate of the limits to growth. At the beginning of the 2000s it was launched as a slogan by activists, and in the following decade turned into a frame for a social movement as well as a concept debated in academia. Although its origins have been traced (Demaria et al 2013), two main issues remain contested and in need of clarification: 1)...

Scientific paper • 2016

How to construct the alternative to capitalism? Discovering the commons in the environmental justice movements

By: DEFNE

Environmental justice movements are taking place at an ever accelerating rate through out the world. Through mobilization of people with diverse societal backgrounds, race, ethnicity, age, gender and income levels, they not only challenge the existing state-society-economy spectrum but also contain important clues about an alternative to capitalism. As crisis vocabulary has become a chronic...

Scientific paper • 2016

Mapping Degrowth

By: Joanna Boehnert

This project will provide an overview of the degrowth movement. I will do this by visualising the degrowth discourse along with other environment discourses on a matrix. I will use surveys and discourse mapping techniques. I will start by constructing a short survey to collect opinions within the degrowth community on discourses in environmental movements. The survey will identify 100 global...

Scientific paper • 2016

Postwachstum im Wandel/Degrowth in transformation

By: Jana Holz

The Master thesis opens perspectives on the status quo and future development of the German degrowth movement. A movement is understood as a network of actors, ideas and occasions that together form and transform it. In order to do so, a qualitative network analysis is carried out within an exploratory and actor-centered research design. Five actors of the movement that played central roles in...

Scientific paper • 2016

Synergies between the degrowth movement and the global ecovillage network

By: Stella Veciana

The primary question of this analysis relates to specific key issues fostering actual and potential synergies between the degrowth and the ecovillage movement. As analysis frame, first some distinctive perspectives around de-growth are introduced on the basis of interviews with experts of the Global South and the Global North. More than reinforcing the criticism of growth societies and...

Scientific paper • 2016

The Digital DIY phenomenon: challenge or opportunity for degrowth?

By: Marco Fioretti

Digital Do-It-Yourself (DiDIY) is a set of DIY activities and mindsets made possible by the availability of low cost software, digital communication networks and digital fabrication devices. Today, the most popular examples of DiDIY are 3D printing and the “Makers Movement”. DiDIY, however, is a much bigger phenomenon, with potentially huge effects on the economy and the environment. So far,...

Scientific paper • 2016

The Economy for the Common Good: an approach to alternative company practices in accordance with degrowth?

By: Jasmin Wiefek, Josefa Kny

The Economy for the Common Good (ECG) is a social movement as well as an alternative economic model that views the common good as the purpose of economic activity. Monetary profits are seen as a mere means. Enterprises participating in the ECG compile so-called common good balance sheets, which assess to which extent the company acts according to values, such as ecological sustainability and...

Scientific paper • 2016

The “Movimento per la Decrescita Felice” (MDF)

By: Jean-Louis Aillon

MDF is a federation of 25 associations (“Clubs”) and 29 informal groups, spread in Italy both in urban and rural areas. MDF deems it is crucial to establish local roots, providing all interested people with the possibility to meet each other, discuss and work together for developing, practising and promoting a new cultural paradigm. The MDF local clubs are intended as means to achieve this...

Scientific paper • 2016

Transition movements on the ground: activist’s career and relationship to the political

By: Ludivine Damay, Anne Guisset

In different cities around the world, one can find a lot of citizen initiatives that propose alternatives to the main consumerist and capitalist logic of production and consumption (Pleyers, 2011). They defend other conceptions of society through cooperative, networks for exchanging goods and services, collective vegetable gardens, “repair cafés”, local currencies, etc. This communication is...

Scientific paper • 2016

Understand the Chinese New Rural Reconstruction Movement (NRRM) as an example of Degrowth Theory

By: Rowan Alcock

From my research on Degrowth China is conspicuous in its absence. Degrowth theory, in order to be a global movement, should begin to research this increasingly important country in more detail. People may believe that one of the world's biggest environmental polluters where multiparty elections are illegal could not possibly have an indigenous degrowth movement. However in my paper I argue that...

Presentation • 2016

FRI_16:30h // Degrowth in the Parliaments

By: Sabine Leidig, Philippe Lamberts, Rebeka Szabo

Panel discussion at the 6th International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Budapest in 2016. Speakers: Philippe Lamberts, Rebeka Szabo, Sabine Leidig Degrowth 2016 - English youtube channel

Misc • 2016

Degrowth in movement(s)

By: Nina Treu, Ashish Kothari, Silke Helfrich, Irmi Salzer

Panel discussion at the 6th International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Budapest in 2016: Research In Action Special Session: Degrowth in movement(s): Discussing degrowth in the context of related social movements and perspectives Speakers: Silke Helfrich, Irmi Salzer, Nina Treu, Ashish Kothari Degrowth 2016 - English youtube channel

Scientific paper • 2016

Degrowth Conference Budapest, 2016 - Has degrowth outgrown its own name? In defence of an ugly frame.

By: Federico Demaria

Presentation by Federico Demaria Degrowth was first used and find its roots in the 1970s debate of the limits to growth. At the beginning of the 2000s it was launched as a slogan by activists, and in the following decade turned into a frame for a social movement as well as a concept debated in academia. Although its origins have been traced (Demaria et al 2013), two main issues remain...

Presentation • 2016

Degrowth Conference Budapest, 2016 - Science and degrowth

By: Fabrice Flipo

Presentation by Fabrice Flipo Political prayers lie on the growth’s comeback to ensure financial incomes to be given out. That for science is seen by many essentially as a tool to provide techniques able to raise productivity, whatever the environmental or social consequences. For those reasons, and especially since the second half of the 20th century, public policy and investment have allowed...

Presentation • 2016

Degrowth Conference Budapest, 2016 - On degrowth in the South: The Case of India

By: Alex Jensen

A thorough and detailed overview of the socioeconomic situation in India and the extent to which the Degrowth discourse can be extended in countries beyond the Global North. The speaker explores the aftermath of the neoliberalization of India: from GDP and billionaires growth to the extreme wealth gap alongside increasing inequality, unemployment, extreme air pollution, fossil fuels...