Library

Scientific paper • 2016

Postwachstumsökonomie und Nachhaltige Entwicklung - Zwei (un)vereinbare Ideen?

By: Jürgen Kopfmüller, Linda Nierling, André Reichel, Marius Albiez

Herausgeber_innen: Insbesondere seit der Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise von 2008 haben wachstumskritische Initiativen und Publikationen erheblich an Zahl und öffentlicher Sichtbarkeit zugenommen. Sie positionieren sich dabei vielfach kritisch zu den seit rund 30 Jahren laufenden und in verschiedener Hinsicht etablierten Debatten und Politiken einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung. In ...

Scientific paper • 2016

Mut zur Effizienz und Befreiung

By: Kai Niebert

Herausgeber_innen: In der Postwachstumsdebatte wird intensiv das Konzept der Grünen Ökonomie diskutiert. Als neues Leitbild verspricht es Lösungen für ökologische und ökonomische Probleme. Doch kann die Green Economy das wirklich? Wenn es der Gesellschaft tatsächlich gelingen soll, in der Zukunft anzukommen, ist es notwendig umzusatteln und sowohl Ross als auch Reiter zu wechseln.

Scientific paper • 2016

Accelerating Degrowth?

By: Alexander Capistran

A skilled and interdisciplinary use of empowering technologies and proactive visionary thinking is, due to Accelerationist thinkers as Armen Avanessian or Nick Srnicek, the most viable strategy for emancipative transformation. Referring to a long history of left thinking (back to Marx himself), Accelerationist theoreticians claim that emancipation from the oppressive capitalist system should...

Scientific paper • 2016

Are we there yet?

By: Jana Gebauer

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

Can degrowth and maintaining energy supply security go hand-in-hand in Europe?

By: John Szabo

Insuring European energy security in a degrowth environment, is essential in maintaining current levels of well-being. To transition toward a sustainable economy, the current, heavy reliance upon hydrocarbon imports needs to be tuned down and substituted with domestic energy production from renewable resources—primarily solar and wind—, leading to a substantial decrease in emissions emitted,...

Scientific paper • 2016

Challenges in the transition towards sustainable development in Bulgaria

By: Aneliya Paneva

Challenges in the transition towards sustainable development in Bulgaria Abstract: An understanding of the causes for changes of ecosystems at the local and national level is essential for initiating learning processes and for designing interventions to reduce adverse environmental impacts. However, transition economies have not been studied much in this context. Taking Bulgaria as a case...

Scientific paper • 2016

Dobrze Co-op – facilitating the transition from niche to mainstream.

By: Jakub Rok, Wojtek Mejor, Nina J. Bąk

About the authors Who are we and what position do we take? Combining the roles of activists, community organizers and co-op members we reflect on our own experience within the organization. Community-engaged research and collaborative building of knowledge for the sake of evaluating successes and failures. About the Co-op A short retrospective on our initiative. Growing from an informal group...

Scientific paper • 2016

Education for socio-ecological transformations

By: Christoph Sanders, Daniel Bendix, Anne Pinnow, Bethany Wilson

Up to now, the discourse on Degrowth doesn't adequately address the relevance of culture for economic growth. Yet, analyzing how cultural patterns shape our lifestyles, habits and thinking is crucial for socio-ecological transformations. In this context, education plays a preeminent role: How does the content of education, its organization and structure prepare individuals for a growth society...

Scientific paper • 2016

From Capitalism Towards Degrowth

By: Steffen Lange

Several recent contributions have discussed the feasibility of establishing a non-growing or a degrowth society within capitalism (Brand, 2014; Foster, 2011; Hahnel, 2012; Klitgaard, 2013; Magdoff & Foster, 2010). These analyses come to the conclusion that capitalism and degrowth are not compatible. A first set of reasons is connected to central dynamics of capitalism, in particular market...

Scientific paper • 2016

Home-front transitions beyond growth: a Swedish case

By: Pernilla Hagbert

The environmental impact and distributive implications of the built environment and our residential environments as mediating human endeavors is significant. Approaches addressing the resource intensity associated with modern ways of living need to go beyond a neo-liberal focus on individual consumption choices, thus widening the framing of sustainable homes as incorporating more than rational,...

Scientific paper • 2016

Is the new 'Different' really different?

By: Judith Kleibs

This presentation deals with the question how to distinguish measures and approaches which fundamentally change the current social logic that is based on an instrumentalistic attitude towards the world from those which maintain this logic and only seem to contribute to a social and ecological just society. For this intent, at first the main characteristics of the instrumentalistic social logic...

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

Scenarios of energetic and societal transitions: potentials and impacts of a sustainable regional economic system

By: Mathieu Le Dû

In 2012, the NGO Virage-énergie Nord-Pas de Calais started a research project focused on energetic, societal and economic transitions within the Nord-Pas de Calais region in France, in partnership with two academic laboratories: TVES (University of Lille 1 - Science and Technologies) and Ceraps (University of Lille 2 - Health and Law). The aim of this research was to evaluate, using data models...

Scientific paper • 2016

Solidarity organizations

By: Matthias Rätzer

Within a general orientation towards growth, ecologic (Meadows et al. 2004), economic (e.g.Martinez Alier 2009) as well as social (Hirsch 1976) problems remain unsolved. Modern approaches seek applicability in reduction of emissions (see Kyoto protocol, COP 21 2015) and Green-New-Deal-trade-offs to cope with a globalized village. The maxim is to produce, act and be ‘sustainable’ – but – within...

Scientific paper • 2016

Strategies for purposive degrowth transformations

By: Panos Petridis

In order to advance our understanding on the potential synthesis and complementarity of strategies for purposive degrowth transformation, there is a need to examine more closely those institutions that “put us in the best position to do more later” (Wright 2013: 21), and those practices that can, at the same time, survive and root in the present system, but also prefigure and embody alternative...

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 Realities and Contradictions of the Growth Economy and Challenges for a Social Ecological Transformation

By: Clive Spash

Clive will cover growth and its contradictions and challenges for degrowth and social ecological transformation. Facilitator: Filka Sekulova This media entry was a contribution to the special session „The Realities and Contradictions of the Growth Economy and Challenges for a Social Ecological Transformation“ at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest in 2016.

Presentation • 2016

FRI_9:30h // Ashish Kothari - Radical alternatives to Unsustainability and inequality

By: Ashish Kothari

Recorded keynote speech at the 6th International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Budapest in 2016. Speaker: Ashish Kotari Degrowth 2016 - English Youtube Channel

Misc • 2016

Die Welt reparieren - Open Source und Selbermachen als postkapitalistische Praxis

By: Christa Müller, Andrea Baier, Karin Werner, Tom Hansing

Weltweit entstehen immer mehr Initiativen des Selbermachens, in denen eine Vielfalt von Anliegen und Problemen kollektiv bearbeitet werden. In diesen – jenseits von Markt und Staat angesiedelten – kollaborativen Zusammenhängen wird ein basisdemokratisch orientiertes Verständnis von Zusammenleben und Urbanität erprobt und zugleich nach ökologisch und sozial sinnvollen Lösungen für grundlegende...