Library

Misc • 2022

Decolonial Feminisms and Degrowth

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Scientific paper • 2022

Anarchy, war, or revolt? Radical perspectives for climate protection, insurgency and civil disobedience in a low-carbon era

By: Benjamin K. Sovacool, Alexander Dunlap

What radical tactics might those seeking transformational action on climate or environmental sustainability undertake? What options are capable of stopping actors and institutions who already realize their actions and behavior may harm millions, degrade the biosphere, and contaminate the climate, but continue to do so, despite the scientific or moral reasons not to? This paper explores efforts...

Misc • 2021

Towards a cultural politics of degrowth: prefiguration, popularization and pressure

By: Miriam Meissner

This article discusses the role of culture in political ecology, with a focus on degrowth. Environmental scientists increasingly consider systemic societal changes such as degrowth as indispensable for the effective tackling of current climate and ecological crises, while governments and civil society remain skeptical of it. To tackle this challenge, this article argues for the strategic...

Misc • 2021

Climate Change Inaction and Post-Reality

By: Philip J. Wilson

Blame for climate change inaction is rarely directed at a fundamental cause, the excessive complexity of society. It has given rise to post-truth, which has been largely reduced to unflattering stereotypes of the public, and post-trust, by which the public see their national institutions as increasingly distant and ineffectual. The two comprise post-reality, by which confidence in the truth is...

Scientific paper • 2021

Mobilising Sense of Place for Degrowth? Lessons From Lancashire's Anti-fracking Activism

By: Javier Lloveras, Adam P. Marshall, Gary Warnaby, Ares Kalandides

This article foregrounds sense of place as a key concept to further advance spatial theorisations within both ecological economics and degrowth. We delineate the scope of the concept and apply it to the fracking controversy in Lancashire, UK. Specifically, we elucidate how sense of place associations were mobilised by pro- and anti-fracking actors to legitimate and advance their respective...

Misc • 2020

Beyond the growth gospel

By: Aaron Timms

Aaron Timms shares his impressions of the Degrowth Summer school, and life at Can Decreix in Cerbère. This article appeared in The New Republic, on January 27th 2020

Misc • 2020

Opinion - Amplifying Voices of Climate Activists of Color

By: Esther Ngumbi

"Highlighting activists of color is good for everyone. Convincingly, a growing body of evidence shows that when minorities and underrepresented voices are included, and their voices and actions displayed, including in science, everyone benefits."

Misc • 2020

Degrowth in Movement(s): Exploring Pathways for Transformation

By: Nina Treu, Matthias Schmelzer, Corinna Bukhart

A dictionary of social movements and alternatives for a future beyond economic growth, capitalism, and domination. Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. Degrowth in Movement(s) reflects on the current situation of social movements aiming...

Misc • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - Book launch: Degrowth in Movement(s)

By: Nina Treu, Brototi Roy, Matthias Schmelzer, Tadzio Müller, Julianna Fehlinger, Corinna Bukhart

Special session Degrowth as an emerging social movement overlaps with radical activism for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. The book “Degrowth in Movement(s). Exploring Pathways for Transformation” (Zer0 books, June 2020) reflects on the current situation of social movements and their relationship to...

Scientific paper • 2020

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

By: Viviana Asara

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

The stories Michael Shellenberger tells

By: Sam Bliss

"Men in power have rationalized all those forms of domination by claiming that they facilitate economic development, which is purportedly great for people and nature. Sound familiar?"

Presentation • 2020

Degrowth Vienna 2020 - Civil disobedience as a strategy for degrowth

By: Sarah Fromm, Simon Schöning

Workshop Civil disobedience is emerging as a key element employed in the fight for environmental and climate justice and for raising awareness about some of the most urgent crises. The aim of the session is to develop a better understanding of civil disobedience and how it may be used strategically in the degrowth process. Nonviolent protest played a fundamental role in the anti-apartheid...

Scientific paper • 2020

Prefiguration, subtraction and emancipation

By: Luigi Pellizzoni

Prefigurative mobilizations replace protest with direct action, means and ends becoming ideally one and the same. Analytically this entails a two-step movement: first, subtraction (withdrawal) from some arrangement; second, affirmation of an alternative. Both positive and critical assessments focus on the strength or lack of affirmativeness. However, as Foucault and governmentality studies have...

Scientific paper • 2019

Complementarity between the EJ movement and degrowth on the European semiperiphery: An empirical study

By: Mladen Domazet, Branko Ančić

Abstract: Inspired by the thesis that an alliance between degrowth and environmental justice (EJ) movements is essential (Akbulut et al., this issue), this paper presents the findings of empirical research concerning the pitfalls and possibilities of such an alliance as understood by prominent Croatian EJ movement leaders. We outline the context of the Croatian EJ movement...

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,...

Scientific paper • 2019

Geographies of degrowth: Nowtopias, resurgences and the decolonization of imaginaries and places

By: Giorgos Kallis, Federico Demaria, Karen Bakker

Abstract: The term ‘décroissance’ (degrowth) signifies a process of political and social transformation that reduces a society's material and energy use while improving the quality of life. Degrowth calls for decolonizing imaginaries and institutions from – in Ursula Le Guin's words – ‘a one-way future consisting only of growth’. Recent scholarship has focused on the ecological and social...

Scientific paper • 2019

The nowtopia of the riverbank: Elder environmental activism

By: Mary Gearey, Neil Ravenscroft

Abstract: Degrowth imaginaries offer alternative ways of envisioning future societies. Those, predominantly working age and working class people, seeking to purposefully enact degrowth in the here and now are termed ‘nowtopians’. Based on empirical work undertaken along the River Adur valley in West Sussex, UK, this paper argues that dynamic examples of nowtopian initiatives can develop from...

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...

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...