Library

Scientific paper • 2014

WELL-BEING AS A SOCIAL MUST. BUT IS WELL-BEING HEALTHY?

Abstract: Today the frantic search for well-being seems to be a social must: living well has become the new imperative, sadness, anger, anxiety, are feelings to be deleted. Subjective well-being is actually a normative construct, that is the product of the values and core principles in a culture. In the consumer society the most important aim is a "happy life"; the necessary condition for being...

Scientific paper • 2014

Business, postgrowth – theses and recommendations

By: Angelika Zahrnt, Jana Gebauer

Abstract: Businesses are not only driving contemporary ideas of progressive economic growth. They are also driven by them as they often perceive an economic and societal pressure to permanently grow in size. At the same time, many companies face stagnant or shrinking markets, resource scarcities, crises or far-reaching demographic trends. Academic and political debates on limits to growth and...

Scientific paper • 2014

Roles for university researchers in promoting sustainability

By: Audley Genus

Abstract: There is considerable debate regarding the contribution to be made by higher education institutions and the researchers they employ in realising environmentally sustainable urban spaces, and the relationship between academic research and lay knowledge. Drawing on previous work, the paper identifies roles that may be played by academic researchers in building sustainable urban...

Scientific paper • 2014

SOCIALISM - ECOLOGISM - FEMINISM Tributaries for building new movements, new paradigms, new communities and new societies

By: Eduardo Giesen

Abstract: The central idea is that for progressing in the construction and - before - in imagination of new models of society, it is necessary, essential, the convergence of socio-political streams -socialism, environmentalism and feminism- that mainly represent cultural changes and social movements in recent decades. Convergence should include but exceed meeting in public demonstrations and...

Scientific paper • 2014

Edgar Morin and the art of rebalancing what needs to grow, degrow and be stabilized.

By: François Gillet

complexe thinking, growth, degrowth , stabilization

Scientific paper • 2014

Getting to Postgrowht: The Transformative Power of Paradigm Shifts

By: Maja Goepel

Abstract: Humans create stories about why they are here, what the purpose of this journey is and how to relate to their human and natural environment. These stories rest on some core ideas that feed into the common language and sense-making that people apply when engaging in collaboration, the design of institutions or legitimization of domination. Looking at what the story of neoclassical...

Scientific paper • 2014

A historical exploration of ruralist ideology in Spain and its importance for the degrowth and democracy debate

By: Santiago Gorostiza

degrowth, autonomy, democracy, fascism, ruralism, Spain

Scientific paper • 2014

Principles and ethics of caring and sustainable economy

By: Daniela Gottschlich

Abstract: Feminist approaches take the rationale of care as a normative guideline that offers an opportunity to deal with the numerous socio-ecological crises caused by e.g. the rationale of development and resource extractivism. Taking the accumulation of capital as a guiding principle does not have a neutral effect on the efforts to secure sustainable livelihoods. On the contrary, it promotes...

Scientific paper • 2014

Societal transformations: Objects, driving forces and potential to govern them

By: Lisa Graaf, Holger Bär, Klaus Jacob

Abstract: Many participants in the German political discourse have emphasized the need for a comprehensive transformation of the political system, the economy and society to meet the challenges of sustainable development. However, the scope, the speed and the means that are necessary to initiate and to advance such processes, is subject to controversial debate. Against this background, this...

Scientific paper • 2014

LOW GROW for Germany: modelling the macroeconomics of degrowth

By: Christoph Gran

macroeconomics; degrowth; scenarios; welfare; ecological economics

Scientific paper • 2014

Human Scale Development... away from bullets and machines

By: Soledad Granada

Abstract: The expansion of the modern state implies the continuous conquer of territory, and people, in order to access to resources. This conquer expresses as the continuous substitution of production models from peasant self-sustainable to agro-industrial and/or extractive, resulting in the territorial homogenization of production. This substitution, associated to different conceptions of...

Scientific paper • 2014

Re-imagining reality and the making of post-growth worlds

By: Jeppe Graugaard

Abstract: If visions and strategies for a post-growth world are to be effective they will have to engage with the ways in which our sense of reality is imagined and produced symbolically, narratively and cognitively. This involves engaging with the way particular worldviews are constituted through a web of metaphors, cultural myths and social conventions, and brings into play the foundational...

Scientific paper • 2014

Money, debt, and the end of the growth imperative

By: Thomas H. Greco

Abstract: The global, interest-based, debt-money system is the primary driver of unsustainable growth, economic inequity, and environmental destruction. Almost all of the money in existence in the world today is created by banks when they make loans. The accrual of interest on these loans over time, causes the amount of debt to always exceed the means for its payment, so new loans must...

Scientific paper • 2014

Rethinking the Role of the Economy and Financial Markets

By: Tony Greenham, Josh Ryan Collins

Abstract: The financial crisis is as much a crisis of economics as of the financial system. Inherent flaws in the modern monetary system overlay and magnify conceptual flaws in prevailing neo-liberal economic policy that rely on frameworks ill-suited to the current context of ecological and social problems. Our response therefore needs to address both the reform of the financial system and a...

Scientific paper • 2014

Economic growth and human needs satisfaction across-socio economic groups in Peru. An illustration using the Human Scale Development Approach

By: Monica Guillen

human needs, international development, wellbeing, economic growth, values

Scientific paper • 2014

The future of Waste Water Treatment: a Delphi-based approach

By: Edeltraud Günther, Martin Nowack

Abstract: Capital intensive and path-dependent sectors are highly vulnerable to changing framework conditions such as demographic change, technological advancements, a stricter legislation or climate change. Decision-makers are often not aware of the long-term dynamics of systems and mostly rely on forecasts and the assumption that the future can be predicted based on extrapolations of past...

Scientific paper • 2014

Exploring Human Labour in times of low carbon and no growth economies

By: Willi Haas, Marina Fischer-Kowalski

energy transitions, human labour, degrowth

Scientific paper • 2014

Economy, Ecommony, CareCommony

By: Friederike Habermann

care, commons, externalisations, extractivism, commonsbased peerproduction

Scientific paper • 2014

Choosing between Blue Growth and Degrowth and the need to reclaim the right to the sea

By: Maria Hadjimichael

marine governance; neoliberalization; coastal communities; rights

Scientific paper • 2014

Reaching the boundaries of the blue planet: dwindling stocks, disappearing communities and the failure of solutions within the neoliberal paradigm

By: Maria Hadjimichael

Abstract: Facing the current crisis The increasing consumption of today's affluent society and its continuous demand for seafood has pushed the boundaries of the ocean to provide for it. It is now believed that global exploitation limits have been reached and that recovery of depleted stocks must become a cornerstone of ﬁsheries management. National, regional and international bodies have come...