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 existing international degrowth literature has paid no attention to non hetero-normative gender identities and the impacts of their socio-political claims and daily life practices on degrowth collectives. With the present work, I aim to fill this gap by looking into the role of different gender identities and the sexual division of power in two degrowth cases. By analysing the level of participation and engagement of women and LGBT+ identities – and their impact on decision-making processes, I will show how different gender identities shape degrowth initiatives. The two selected cases, both in Barcelona, Spain, have been already analysed as emblematic cases of degrowth collectives. The first one is Can Masdeu, a squat engaged in many socio-ecological activities, such as urban gardening, permaculture, ecological planning, sustainable transport and oppositional confrontation to real estate speculation. The second case is Aurea Social, a collective part of the Cooperativa Integral Catalana whose main activities relate to urban commoning, alternative education and cooperatives, using urban space as a path to personal development, autonomy, empowerment, and self-management. The empirical results indicate the daily obstacles to sexual and gender equality in these degrowth experiences.

This media entry was a contribution to the special session „Degrowth practices under non-binary gender insight in Barcelona “ at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest in 2016.