Library

Scientific paper • 2016

Degrowth as a Central Theme for Sustainability Science Education

Sustainability science suffers from being “everything to everyone,” leaving the discipline, and its educational curriculum, without a central organizing theory. However, data show that exponential global economic growth now exceeds the limits of Earth’s biophysical and social systems. Thus growth, as the dominant purpose of neoclassical economics, drives both environmental conditions and...

Scientific paper • 2016

Degrowth as resistance

By: Pablo Font Oporto

Since the early days, resistance to tyranny has been the most basic, but sometimes the most effective, legitimate way to oppose the injustice of political power. It is an instrument of action that has been complemented in recent centuries as well as sometimes replaced by civil disobedience. In particular, the option of the non-violence, when possible, seems to gain even more...

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

Degrowth in the 'emerging' economies

By: Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Erin Kennedy, Vasna Ramasar, Mine Islar

Even though there has arguably been an increase in the interest in degrowth across the world, certain contexts are almost completely absent from the discussion. In this session we will start filling the gaps by exploring the potential for degrowth in the so called ‘emerging’ (in itself a problematic term) countries. These have opened their doors to growth-oriented capitalism and have the...

Scientific paper • 2016

Degrowth practices under non-binary gender insight in Barcelona

By: Helena Sanz-Requejo

Recently, Degrowth scholars have started to connect with feminist thought and claims. In particular, building on feminist economics, degrowthers have been studying the unequal distribution of work, like care work, among gender and what this implies to degrowth society envision. However, Degrowth scholarships fall short on the complexity and the plurality of gender relations. Indeed, the...

Scientific paper • 2016

De-growth, pro what? – Backcasting a sustainable society without economic growth

By: Liisa Haapanen

The positive vision of green growth and the negative outlook of a recession are the prevailing images of future for a growth-centred society. They are challenged by various alternative views of a post-growth society. The purpose of this paper is to specify and elaborate the desired future end-states and scenarios put forward in contemporary growth critique. A literature review of the following...

Scientific paper • 2016

Delhi : After Twenty Years ? A New Approach Questioning Normal Daily Life :

By: Divyaraj Amiya

Showing some excerpts from my video film Delhi : After Twenty Years the presentation will try to raise some fundamental questions about what is accepted as normal daily life in India. The broad consensus around production of well-educated urban middle class as solution to the ills of social and economic crises in India will be questioned in the documentary report. What can be the root...

Scientific paper • 2016

Democracy and institutional change

By: Viviana Asara, Viviana Asara, Ulrich Brand, Barbara Muraca, Marina Lalatta Costerbosa

The path towards a socially and ecologically sustainable, just, and participatory degrowth-society requires a radical rethinking of traditional democracies. Most authors have advanced a participatory, decentralized vision of democracy (Deriu, 2012; Latouche, 2005) grounded in some form of direct democracy (Asara et al., 2013), and combined with the flourishing of grassroots practices and...

Scientific paper • 2016

Desirable atmosphere - (sub)urban

By: Harpa Stefansdottir

The purpose of this study is to lay out the pros and cons of downtown areas versus the suburban from the perspective of the concept „atmosphere“ which relates to an aesthetic quality, a sense of place. How the experience of atmosphere might influence the level of activity pattern of the residents is important for the discussion on what urban qualities should be accentuated and which...

Scientific paper • 2016

Development, Urban Planning, Degrowth

By: KarlK

The idea of the necessity to plan cities begins with the birth of the city itself and the growth of cities is strongly linked to economic growth. The stronger urban expansion in times of the industrial revolution led to the creation of urban planning as an autonomous discpline, that has always tried to change the way cities grow, proposing many different concepts, e.g. garden cities, the just...

Scientific paper • 2016

Distributional effects of resource taxes on consumption

By: Sven Willner

Today's material economy is highly globalized and interlinked. Goods are produced along global supply chains forming a complex economic network. Even post-growth societies based on regional production cycles will most likely depend on such chains, because resources are unequally distributed throughout the globe and therefore not all goods can be produced locally; an aspect often neglected in...

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

Drivers of Economic Growth

By: Eugen Pissarskoi

Most of the basic societal institutions which had been established during the post-war period within the early industrialized affluent societies rely for their proper functioning on economic growth. Current environmental challenges – as for example the concept of planetary boundaries makes them apparent – might require that these institutions become independent from economic growth. However,...

Scientific paper • 2016

Ecological macroeconomic models: Assessing current developments

By: Lukas Bunse

Our society faces a fundamental dilemma. While continued economic growth is ecologically unsustainable, reductions in consumer demand are often accompanied by adverse social impacts. Hence there is a need for macroeconomic tools that can help with the identification of socially sustainable degrowth pathways. The emerging field of ecological macroeconomics aims to address this need and features...

Scientific paper • 2016

Ecomodernism and degrowth

By: Sam Bliss

In 2015, 19 scientists and thought leaders published “An Ecomodernist Manifesto” with “the conviction that knowledge and technology, applied with wisdom, might allow for a good, or even great, Anthropocene.” Like degrowth, ecomodernism criticizes mainstream environmentalism, considers “human prosperity and an ecologically vibrant planet inseparable,” and aims to shrink aggregate environmental...

Scientific paper • 2016

Economic modelling and Degrowth

By: Federico Demaria, Claudio Cattaneo, Simone D'Alessandro, Giovanni Bernardo, Ilaria Perissi

Degrowth calls for a sustainable downscaling of production and consumption, to enhance wellbeing and environmental sustainability. It is important, for the widespread acceptance of this aim, to show how and under which conditions sustainable degrowth can be achieved. In order to gain a broad political legitimacy, the social and environmental effects of no-growth policies need to be shown and...

Scientific paper • 2016

Economic values, capital accumulation and degrowth

By: Mikael Malmaeus

Historically, value theories used to be at the heart of critiques of capitalism. However, contemporary economists rarely focus on value theories, and the labor theory of value has not been discussed in relation to macroeconomic growth or in the context of degrowth. In this article it is theoretically and empirically demonstrated that economic values at the macroeconomic level are fundamentally...

Scientific paper • 2016

Economy from a substantive perspective and well-being

By: Sylvie CONSTANTINOU

Economy, approached by Polanyi from a substantive perspective, understands the human livelihood as exchanges between human being and natural and social environment. This framework of universal reference reveals the conditions in which market and planning could coexist and made individuals free from mercantile attitude. Market economy results from a complex historical process which led to an...

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

Empowering Radical Development Alternatives

By: Ashish Kothari

Conventional power equations are being challenged in innovative ways by communities in India and elsewhere. While the power elites prod countries like India into the ever-tightening embrace of global capital, it is becoming clearer by the day that neither do the poor and marginalized benefit, nor is a globalized model of development ecologically sustainable. In the middle of the multiple crises...