Library

Scientific paper • 2016

Empowering Sustainable Communities through Energy Co-operatives

Energy is a key element in improving the living conditions by contributing to e.g. a safe living environment; improved nourishment, education and transportation; a means of production and economic security. The current centralized energy system, comprising profit-driven corporations, is presented as the ideal means of supplying energy by providing the “lowest energy prices”. However,...

Scientific paper • 2016

Energy poverty in a degrowth context: an unavoidable struggle?

By: Daniel Gerbery, Lidija Živčič, Lidija Živčič, Richard Filcak, Sergio Tirado Herrero

Austerity-driven, unsustainable degrowth has resulted in a surge of energy poverty in EU and beyond. Understood as the inability of households to secure a materially- and socially-necessitated level of energy services in the home, energy poverty has become a widespread societal concern that demands structural responses. Tensions are foreseen between energy poverty alleviation and degrowth. On...

Scientific paper • 2016

Engaging with the Plutocene: moving toward degrowth and post-capitalist futures

By: Kristoffer Wilén, Marko Ulvila

In our study, we take a closer look at the ‘Anthropos’ (i.e. the humans) who have caused the processes and changes in the environments, which then have led to the “Anthropocene”. The “Anthropocene” narrative is predominantly presented as something that the entire humankind, the human species, is responsible for. But what happens when you apply a class perspective to the analysis? Hence, we will...

Scientific paper • 2016

Environmental selves and alternative meanings of work

By: Kristoffer Wilén

Our article is based on interviews with 20 self-declared environmentally conscious individuals, and by drawing on theories of performativity (Judith Butler), we have studied the ways in which questions of work and working life are negotiated within the formation of green selves (identities). We believe that our findings are relevant for understanding how environmental concerns generate...

Scientific paper • 2016

Evaluation of the Slow City Approach as a Degrowth Strategy for Shrinking Communities

By: Heuishilja Chang

As a consequence of global urban competition, shrinkage is becoming the norm for an increasing number of urban and rural places in industrialised countries. The most acute shrinkage often exists in small rural communities which have experienced sustained depopulation and the resultant decline of economic, environmental and social functions. In Japan, for instance, about one-third of the 1,700...

Scientific paper • 2016

Everyday sustainability: human agency and ethical practice

By: Roxana Morosanu

In the context of a post-humanist turn in social sciences that proposes to de-centre the human subject in order to emphasize the flat ontologies of networks, affect, and practices, the concept of human agency gets lost, or becomes easily dismissible. This paper argues that the social sciences of sustainability might be the field that currently needs the most to rethink and reintroduce human...

Scientific paper • 2016

Exploring Degrowth pathways through prospective modeling

By: François Briens

With the emergence of the Degrowth movement, the call for transitions towards sustainable “post-growth societies” is now consolidating into a multifaceted political project. Yet, such a project raises numerous questions, for instance: what concrete proposals could initiate such a transition? What could they induce in terms of employment, public debt, energy consumption, environmental impact?...

Scientific paper • 2016

Exploring Degrowth Pathways Using System Dynamics

By: Therese Bennich

During the 40 years that have passed since the publication of The Limits to Growth, the concept of degrowth and system dynamics have sometimes developed separately. There is now increasing evidence supporting the conclusions of The Limits to Growth and degrowth is a concept being discussed both in the academic and public debate. There is a need to look at potential ways to adapt to the limits...

Scientific paper • 2016

Exploring the Food Consumption Patterns of the Local Population on the Greek Island of Samothraki

By: Julia Désirée Huber

The Greek island of Samothraki was food self-sufficient up until the mid 1960s. This paper analyses, from a socio-metabolic perspective, how the changes in Mediterranean food production and consumption have influenced the island’s food consumption patterns over the past 50 years. A food consumption survey was conducted to assess the current food consumption patterns of the local population of...

Scientific paper • 2016

Flourishing in low-carbon just futures?

By: Eléonore Fauré

This paper describes how daily life could turn out 2050 in normative scenarios for developments beyond traditional GDP growth for Sweden. Four scenarios have been developed in a previous phase of a transdisciplinary project: 1) collaborative economy, 2) local self-sufficiency, 3) automatization for quality of life, and 4) circular economy in the welfare state. These scenarios all fulfill a...

Scientific paper • 2016

Food Policies for the Anthropocene

By: Stefano Menegat

Over the past decades, increasing scientific evidences have proven that the costs of the capitalist agri-food system in terms of ecological and social deterioration are by far exceeding its claimed benefits. A paradigm shift toward a more sustainable and just agriculture is today both necessary and desirable. This proposal aims to shed light on the emergence of a new paradigm and to support its...

Scientific paper • 2016

Forging new/old sociocultural systems driven by motives other than growth

By: Susan Paulson, Eric Hirsch, Jixia Lu, Manuel Vallee, Siri M. Kjellberg, Charles Bassey

Degrowth calls for decolonizing human identities and relationships from values and visions that exalt the endless expansion of production and consumption. This multi-session explores paths toward such decolonization through initiatives to recuperate, adapt and invent sociocultural systems that change the way we humans produce and consume goods and services, and—more powerfully—the ways in which...

Scientific paper • 2016

Forging new/old sociocultural systems driven by motives other than growth

By: Elisabeth Skarðhamar Olsen, Lisa L. Gezon, Lisa L. Gezon, Eeva Berglund

Degrowth calls for decolonizing human identities and relationships from values and visions that exalt the endless expansion of production and consumption. This multi-session explores paths toward such decolonization through initiatives to recuperate, adapt and invent sociocultural systems that change the way we humans produce and consume goods and services, and—more powerfully—the ways in which...

Scientific paper • 2016

Fostering a cultural response to eco-systemic change

By: Rahul

Sustainable development has today become a commonly used term, yet it describes a concept that is still being considered by different kinds of societies, each in a manner of their choosing. This has happened because while historically how societies grew to be 'developed' was a process that took a variety of pathways, today the prescribed pathway to the 'modern' scarcely changes from one country...

Scientific paper • 2016

Framing socio-ecological conflicts in Russia

By: Felix Jaitner

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union Russia´s dependency on natural resources has significantly increased. According to the Russian state agency for statistics (Goskomstat), the share of non-renewable energy sources (oil, gas and coal) in total exports reached almost 70 % in the year 2013. The paper combines two goals: Analyzing the historical formation of the Soviet development model the...

Scientific paper • 2016

Framing the Privacy Debate and Big Data Governmentality in Degrowth Theory

By: Julien Rossi

Data surveillance by private companies and public intelligence agencies is intricated, and research has shown how citizens have become willing participants in their own surveillance. This brings forth a new type of governmentality that is legitimised by hegemonic imaginaries on “Big Data” and innovation which are closely related to the imaginary of technological growth. The Snowden disclosures...

Scientific paper • 2016

From a cultural narrative of co-territoriality to one of co-temporality

By: Gui Azevedo

Nationalisms and ‘national interests’ get in the way of solving pressing global problems—e.g., global warming, mass ecological extinction, extreme poverty, and proliferation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Searching for a renewed narrative that could allow us to escape this gridlock, I argue here that our current inability of acting is, to a large extent, caused by the...

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

From capitalist accumulation to a solidarity economy

By: Barbara Muraca

In her keynote speech, Barbara Muraca will outline the key strategies for degrowth, specifically reflecting on the following topics, which are also the guiding topics of the third day of the conference: -Changing networks of production and consumption and driving political action -Degrowth as a fundamentally social challenge, involving structural changes of social practices, institutions and...

Scientific paper • 2016

From societal stupidity to the future based on wisdom enhancing ties between individuals

By: Olli Tammilehto

The global growth society is rapidly destroying its ecological base and consequently also itself. Crushing one's own foundation is surely a mark of stupidity. The madness in question, however, is of societal quality, not reducible to the properties of individuals. On the contrary, according to many opinion polls individual human beings widely recognize the absurdity of economic growth and the...