Library

Scientific paper • 2016

Permaculture as a tool for empowerment under the Degrowth perspective.

Building physical and social spaces through Permaculture under Degrowth theory transforms not only the environment but it also has de potential to change people. These spaces empower those who use these tools and they have also the potential to share concepts and values during immersions and courses involving another look about environment. Empowerment is a plural and dynamic concept, involving...

Scientific paper • 2016

Permaculture-one way to a more sustainable agriculture

By: Szilagyi Alfred

In the first half of my paper I summarise the theoretical background, the ethical basis, and the structure and steps of permaculture design by synthetising the international literature. In the second half I provide an example of the practical application of design in the case of the open-air museum of Szenna. Permaculture is a conscious, ethical design which seeks to create sustainable...

Scientific paper • 2016

Polanyi, historical lessons, future challenges, semiperiphery

By: Gareth Dale

Gareth Dale reflects on how the lessons from history of the semi-periphery can be used for degrowth of tomorrow. Drawing from his understanding of the work of Karl Polanyi, Gareth will try to sketch Polanyi’s answers for the currently open degrowth challenges and issues raised at the conference. This media entry was a contribution to the special session „Polanyi, historical lessons, future...

Scientific paper • 2016

Postcolonising Degrowth: Refugee protests in Germany, global inequality and Post-Development in the North

By: Daniel Bendix

The slogan “We are here because you destroy our countries” has been voiced by refugee activists in Germany for about twenty years. It acknowledges the connection between colonialism, neocolonialism, ‘development’, and migration. Discussions on the coloniality of development as evident in the Post-Development school have focused on the South and made global inequalities a central framework of...

Scientific paper • 2016

Postwachstum im Wandel/Degrowth in transformation

By: Jana Holz

The Master thesis opens perspectives on the status quo and future development of the German degrowth movement. A movement is understood as a network of actors, ideas and occasions that together form and transform it. In order to do so, a qualitative network analysis is carried out within an exploratory and actor-centered research design. Five actors of the movement that played central roles in...

Scientific paper • 2016

Potentialities of the Social and Solidarity Economy for Buen Vivir and Degrowth.

By: Unai Villalba

Recently many authors have analyzed the links between the Buen Vivir (BV) and Degrowth (DG) paradigms (Escobar 2010, 2015, Thomson 2011, Unceta 2013, 2014, D’Alisa et al. 2015). They see many similarities between both proposals regarding: the critic of growth, the need for transition strategies, the re-conceptualization of wellbeing, new values, the commons, etc. But there are too some...

Scientific paper • 2016

Profiles of happy people under economic stress

By: Aiste

Much of the discussion over happiness has focused on the significance of income. Some researchers argue that cognitive factors (expectations, social comparisons, cognitive schemas) is the mediating part between income and happiness, however, positive psychology suggests that happiness determines the effect of social comparison itself. We have chosen to explore the relationship between household...

Scientific paper • 2016

Prospects of an unconditional basic income in a degrowth economy

By: Thomas Frisius

It is already evident that current present-day industrial nations can offer a basic income without risking the collapse of the economy. Even the supply with an unconditional basic income (UBI) is imaginable. However, it is not obvious whether an UBI sufficing for more than the subsistence consumption can be realized in a degrowth economy. A simple mathematical model is applied to estimate the...

Scientific paper • 2016

Public spaces in a compact city: planning for social capital

By: Beata Sirowy

This paper focuses on public spaces within the cities as an arena for a de-growth transition, addressing in this context the role of social capital – a term which most generally refers to social connectedness and individuals’ engagement in a community. In most urban theory, as well as in policy and planning strategies, the implicit assumption is the transitory character of public spaces – they...

Scientific paper • 2016

Queer-feminist reflections on urban ecological initiatives

By: Nina Aukenthaler

In the last years we can witness an increasing number of different initiatives, which try to develop more ecological ways of living in the city. Working on and with these initiatives has to be an intrinsic part of our discussions on degrowth, not at least because these initiatives fight the disastrous economical as well as ecological insanities and campaign for degrowth on a practical level in...

Scientific paper • 2016

Questioning or reconceptualising North-South cooperation? (Or how to support communities in choosing to avoid dead-end paths, and enter virtuous cycles instead)

By: Silvio Cristiano

Discussing about degrowth in the Global South is often a delicate topic. Compelling issues might acquire priority in a deprived “developing” context. However, foreign aid is mostly self-interested and hence venomous: when help is heteronomous and adopted for long time, populations risk to have their metabolism and resilience compromised. Nonetheless, such populations have a strong point on...

Scientific paper • 2016

Radical Alternatives to Unsustainability and Inequality: A Global Perspective

By: Ashish Kothari

Ashish Kothari will build the basis for discussions of the fourth day of the conference, which will focus on building alliances for degrowth. In his speech, he will outline his views on the guiding topics for discussion of that day: -Degrowth and inequality from a global perspective -Lack of real democracy and equity (political and economic) -Positive transformations based on radical political...

Scientific paper • 2016

Real estate speculation and rent-extraction in a degrowth economy:

By: Beth Stratford

Constraints on resource use associated with degrowth are likely to reduce the scope for profitable investment in the ‘real’ economy. In such a context, those seeking to grow their wealth may increasingly turn to the purchase of existing assets, including land and housing, for the purpose of rent-extraction or speculation. Indeed, sociologists like John Bellamy Foster and Wolfgang Streeck argue...

Scientific paper • 2016

Real Food Utopias: solidarity and economic democracy in Greece

By: Christabel Buchanan, Jenny Gkiougki

Since 2008, European political elites have deepened the democratic deficit in an effort to keep neoliberalism alive. Greece especially has experienced harsh economic conditions and political coercion. With growing inequality, people have joined in solidarity to deal with the sudden and severe rise in food poverty. In our highly unequal and inefficient agri-food system, grassroots food movements...

Scientific paper • 2016

Receding into sustainability?

By: Anke Schaffartzik, Melanie Pichler

The long-term stability of current capitalist societies is intrinsically dependent on growth in general and on capital accumulation in particular. The reduction or lack of growth in material resource use and economic output which can be observed in some capitalist societies must therefore be understood as the effect of economic and financial crisis and not as evidence for an environmentally and...

Scientific paper • 2016

Reclaiming the commons from theory to practice

By: Laura Lara Martín, Luis, Luis, Antonio Valera Lozano, Carme Melo

The title of this course is: “Reclaiming the commons”, and aims to make a theoretical reflection on the concept of community management of lands and resources and a series of discussions or proposals on how to set up this concept. We will use the real-world example of a rural community in the Iberian Mountain range in Teruel (Spain), through a project of community management of the ...

Scientific paper • 2016

Re-Embedding the Economy: Convivial Degrowth?

By: Frank Adloff, Steffen Lange, Andrea Vetter, Andrea Vetter, Andrea Vetter, Esra Erdem, Humbert

In recent years, the term conviviality gained new popularity in and outside academia. Although conviviality– when used in the tradition of Ivan Illich – is conceptionally near to that of degrowth, a focused debate on the benefits and shortcomings of both concepts as well as their comparison is still pending. This Session focuses on this task. Degrowth being a concept that emphases economic...

Scientific paper • 2016

Re-embedding the food economy in food politics

By: Lanka Horstink

Food, whether conceptualised as necessity, system or industry, is central to major social, economic and ecological challenges, both source and solution of wicked problems such as hunger, poverty, and climate change. It has been foundational to economic thinking and policies, from the first complete theory of economics by physiocrats, to classical economics and the sociologies of Marx, Weber and...

Scientific paper • 2016

Relearning from selected Soviet parallels – „Dacha resilience“ as a degrowth pathway for Eastern Europe in the 21st century?

By: Lilian Pungas

After the fall of communism, the dominant political elite in Estonia intended to get as far away as possible from the disliked planned economy as well as from the homo sovieticus. The country thus ended up on the opposite side, proudly presenting itself as the most radical neoliberalist market economy in Europe. Polanyi’s embedded economy had no chance of survival in Estonia. Nevertheless,...

Scientific paper • 2016

Rethinking Degrowth with Diverse Economies (Panel 1)

By: Phedeas Stephanides, Esra Erdem, Esra Erdem, Bianca Elzenbaumer Fabio Franz, Lise Skou

Rethinking Degrowth with Diverse Economies (Panel 1): Narratives and visions of actually-existing degrowth praxis As there seems to be no alternative to the capitalist status-quo, the task of overcoming capitalism through degrowth appears daunting. This implicates that degrowth concepts become confined to either pre-capitalist cultures or a future society. How, then, might we escape this...