Library

Scientific paper • 2015

The Pedagogy of Degrowth: Teaching Hispanic Studies in the Age of Social Inequality and Ecological Collapse

Abstract: Transforming education is crucial to generate a society able to deal with the complex socio-environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. In the current context of unacceptable inequality and ecological collapse we cannot continue teaching as if we were not losing from 40 to 200 species a day. Based on my experience as a professor teaching courses on Environmental Humanities and...

Scientific paper • 2014

De-growth as Counter-Hegemony? Lessons from Turkey

By: Bengi Akbulut, Prof Fikret Adaman, Murat Arsel, Duygu Avci

Abstract: That degrowth agenda has not taken an explicit stance vis-à-vis the organization of the economic relations has been a point of sharp criticism, especially regarding the viability of a degrowth trajectory. While the critiques have predominantly emphasized the material role of economic growth in the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, we argue that the notion of growth...

Scientific paper • 2014

The misunderstanding of “Growing Growth”

By: Kay Bourcarde, Karsten Herzmann

Abstract: The paper addresses a core assumption of economic policy, namely, the assumption growth by steady high rates being typical to economies. In the seventies such exponential growth has been criticized in the bestseller “The Limits to Growth” to be a hazard to the environment and to mankind as a whole. However, as the paper demonstrates, almost all western economies show mere linear...

Scientific paper • 2014

Socio-Cultural Construction of Reality and Ecological Overshoot

By: Sebastian Brand

Abstract: Current social and cultural constructions of reality are a co-cause of ecological overshoot, i.e. the way we think and perceive the world’s ecosystems and their resources is a major reason why we as a species exceed the ecological limits to growth. These socio-cultural "Ways of Worldmaking" (Goodman) are therefore a major obstacle for a more ecological economy and a more sustainable...

Scientific paper • 2014

Defamiliarizing experiences in a center for degrowth

By: Corinna Burkhart

norms, normality, practical defamiliarization, cross-normality experience, change

Scientific paper • 2014

Eco-communities: implementing degrowth from the grassroots

By: Claudio Cattaneo

Abstract: Eco-communities are specifically planned and set up for people to come and live together with the goal of living and working according to ecological principles by promoting a degree of sharing (see also work-sharing) and pursuing well-being through more sustainable life-styles, direct democracy and a degree of autonomy. Participative DIY non-monetary practices are applied for...

Scientific paper • 2014

Between Daily Practices and Political Action

By: Markus Flück

Abstract: My starting point is that the “green revolution” and free trade policies haven’t been successful towards solving hunger problems and might even endanger the nutrition system of the whole human society. On the consumption side, especially in the north, but also in the wealthy social classes in the south, feeding habits need more and more energy and produce too much rubbish. A hopeful...

Scientific paper • 2014

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

By: Francesca Gardiol

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

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

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

Dual Development and the denial of social requirements by logics of Growth and Degrowth ("Special Session: Social Inequality and Degrowth")

By: Stefanie Huertgen

Abstract: I argue that a coincidence of growing profits and growing consumption / wages cannot be presumed any longer. Even if many participants of the Degrowth-Debate do so, the equation of economic Growth of enterprises and consumptive Growth of the population (at least in the Global North) is in itself bound to imaginations coming from the postwar (“fordist”) period and the class-compromise...

Scientific paper • 2014

Attitudes towards technology: dominant technological optimism and challenges for the degrowth alternative

By: Christian Kerschner, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers

Abstract: The way our society sees and relates itself to technology is crucial for the debate on economic degrowth. Latouche and others have recognized this and propose, a highly critical if not pessimist attitude. A position which goes back to Georgescu-Roegen but more importantly to Ivan Illich and those authors which describe technological systems as autonomous social systems; most...

Scientific paper • 2014

Swap, share, experience: the transformative potential of socio-ecological forms of practice

By: Jenny Lay, Till Westermayer

Abstract: Regarding strategies for transformation, we examine the transformative potential of socio-ecological projects. "Pioneers of change", i.e. innovative projects that do not stay in niches but shift the play of powers, encourage the degrowth transformation. When and how do such "forms of practice" become powerful instruments of transformation? Following practice theory, we understand...

Scientific paper • 2014

Halbwertszeiten - Psychoanalytische Überlegungen zu „blinder Wachstumsabhängigkeit“ anhand der psychodynamischen Historie und mentalen Präsenz von Atomenergie

By: Angela Mauss-Hanke

Abstract: Es versteht sich von selbst, daß Gier nichts ist, was wir mühsam erlernen müssen. Sozialpsychologische Studien zeigen: wo es viel zu holen gibt, wird viel geholt – unabhängig davon, ob das langfristig klug ist oder nicht oder anderen schadet oder nicht. Diesem Impuls nicht nachzugehen, also Verzicht zu leisten, ist genau das: eine menschliche Kultur-Leistung, die uns etwas abfordert,...

Scientific paper • 2014

THE MYTH OF PROGRESS AND SCIENTIFIC ONTOLOGY

By: Antonio S. Vélez R.

myth, ontology, axiology

Scientific paper • 2014

Creating ruptures in actual representations to support the design of sufficient and convivial way of lives

By: Marion Real, Benjamin Tyl, Iban Lizarralde

strong sustainability, user behaviors, eco-ideation, learning and open environments

Scientific paper • 2014

Societal Relations with Nature and Mental Infrastructures - A critical glance from Buen Vivir and Theravāda-Buddhism

By: Christoph Maria Sanders

Mental infrastructures; Societal relations with nature; Nature-culture-dualism; Buen Vivir; Theravāda-Buddhism

Scientific paper • 2014

Education for Sustainable Consumption through Mindfulness Training

By: Laura Stanszus

Abstract: Education for Sustainable Development, Attitude-behavior-gap, Mindfulness, Individual transformation, Self-reflection Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is considered one of the main drivers of sustainability transformation strategies worldwide. Despite numerous efforts to forward ESD, its practical relevance remains low, as exemplified in the consumption related education...

Scientific paper • 2014

The significance of everyday life, values and meaning for a more social and ecological society: a life world perspective

By: Johannes Timaeus

Abstract: Everyday life and meaning represent two crucial aspects to understand the challenges society is facing towards its transition to a more sustainable future, beyond unrestrained growth. Schütz’ life world theory provides a theoretical framework that takes everyday life and meaning into focus. According to life world theory everyday life is enabled by everyday assumptions, i.e. the...

Scientific paper • 2014

From Consumerism to Wellbeing: Towards a Cultural Transition?

By: Philip Vergragt, Halina Szejnwald Brown

Abstract: Since the end of WWII the USA has transformed itself into a consumer society, with consumerism as a dominant lifestyle. It is a very stable complex system, which emerged through concerted efforts of the manufacturing sector, government policies, and organized labor. The ecological cost of this transformation has been high. Fundamental shifts need to take place in how people satisfy...