Library

By: Benjamin K. Sovacool, Alexander Dunlap

What radical tactics might those seeking transformational action on climate or environmental sustainability undertake? What options are capable of stopping actors and institutions who already realize their actions and behavior may harm millions, degrade the biosphere, and contaminate the climate, but continue to do so, despite the scientific or moral reasons not to? This paper explores efforts ...

By: Javier Lloveras, Adam P. Marshall, Gary Warnaby, Ares Kalandides

This article foregrounds sense of place as a key concept to further advance spatial theorisations within both ecological economics and degrowth. We delineate the scope of the concept and apply it to the fracking controversy in Lancashire, UK. Specifically, we elucidate how sense of place associations were mobilised by pro- and anti-fracking actors to legitimate and advance their respective posi...

By: Philip J. Wilson

Blame for climate change inaction is rarely directed at a fundamental cause, the excessive complexity of society. It has given rise to post-truth, which has been largely reduced to unflattering stereotypes of the public, and post-trust, by which the public see their national institutions as increasingly distant and ineffectual. The two comprise post-reality, by which confidence in the truth is ...

By: Miriam Meissner

This article discusses the role of culture in political ecology, with a focus on degrowth. Environmental scientists increasingly consider systemic societal changes such as degrowth as indispensable for the effective tackling of current climate and ecological crises, while governments and civil society remain skeptical of it. To tackle this challenge, this article argues for the strategic employ...

By: Luigi Pellizzoni

Prefigurative mobilizations replace protest with direct action, means and ends becoming ideally one and the same. Analytically this entails a two-step movement: first, subtraction (withdrawal) from some arrangement; second, affirmation of an alternative. Both positive and critical assessments focus on the strength or lack of affirmativeness. However, as Foucault and governmentality studies have...

By: Sarah Fromm, Simon Schöning

Workshop Civil disobedience is emerging as a key element employed in the fight for environmental and climate justice and for raising awareness about some of the most urgent crises. The aim of the session is to develop a better understanding of civil disobedience and how it may be used strategically in the degrowth process. Nonviolent protest played a fundamental role in the anti-apartheid mo...

By: Sam Bliss

"Men in power have rationalized all those forms of domination by claiming that they facilitate economic development, which is purportedly great for people and nature. Sound familiar?"

By: Viviana Asara

Abstract: Under regimes of austerity, social movements´ transformative eco-politics may appear endangered. What kinds of environmentalism and radical imaginaries can unfold in social movements in crisis-ridden societies? I focus on the ‘movement of the squares’ during its post-encampment phase, with a case study of three urban projects of the Indignados movement in Barcelona. Observation of the...

By: Matthias Schmelzer, Iris Frey, Andro Rilović, Stefania Barca, Eeva Houtbeckers

Panel debate The aim of this panel is to evaluate and discuss degrowth and it’s strategies in direct relation to the current corona crisis. We want to understand how the degrowth community responded so far to the crisis and how degrowth was and is present in recent discussions. The goal is then to identify potential pathways, but also barriers, for bringing forward the degrowth agenda in thi...

By: Nina Treu, Brototi Roy, Matthias Schmelzer, Tadzio Müller, Julianna Fehlinger, Corinna Bukhart

Special session Degrowth as an emerging social movement overlaps with radical activism for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. The book “Degrowth in Movement(s). Exploring Pathways for Transformation” (Zer0 books, June 2020) reflects on the current situation of social movements and their relationship to de...

By: Nina Treu, Matthias Schmelzer, Corinna Bukhart

A dictionary of social movements and alternatives for a future beyond economic growth, capitalism, and domination. Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. Degrowth in Movement(s) reflects on the current situation of social movements aimin...

By: Esther Ngumbi

"Highlighting activists of color is good for everyone. Convincingly, a growing body of evidence shows that when minorities and underrepresented voices are included, and their voices and actions displayed, including in science, everyone benefits."

By: Aaron Timms

Aaron Timms shares his impressions of the Degrowth Summer school, and life at Can Decreix in Cerbère. This article appeared in The New Republic, on January 27th 2020

By: Enrique Navarro-Jurado, Yolanda Romero-Padilla, José María Romero-Martínez, Eduardo Serrano-Muñoz, Sabina Habegger, Rubén Mora-Esteban

The purpose of this study is to analyse the new processes of tourism growth and its conflicts from the perspective of social movements. First, the urban growth machine analysis model is applied by the systematisation of six projects. Second, the resistance movements against those projects and whether this resistance could be the start of local tourism degrowth policies are examined. The methodo...

By: Claudio Milano, Marina Novelli, Joseph M. Cheer

Overtourism is a contemporary phenomenon, rapidly evolving and underlined by what is evidently excessive visitation to tourist destinations. This is obvious in the seemingly uncontrolled and unplanned occurrence of urban overtourism in popular destinations and arguably a consequence of unregulated capital accumulation and growth strategies heavily associated with selling cities as tourism commo...

By: Mary Gearey, Neil Ravenscroft

Degrowth imaginaries offer alternative ways of envisioning future societies. Those, predominantly working age and working class people, seeking to purposefully enact degrowth in the here and now are termed ‘nowtopians’. Based on empirical work undertaken along the River Adur valley in West Sussex, UK, this paper argues that dynamic examples of nowtopian initiatives can develop from alternative ...

By: Women & Environment International magazine

Climate chaos and worsening income disparities (both local and global) make it more important than ever to forge respectful alliances between academics and front line community activists --the majority of whom are women. Information-sharing of many varieties, and mobilizing this knowledge for local grass-roots action as well as policy formation (and removing perverse policies!), should happen h...

By: Jérôme Pelenc, Grégoire Wallenborn, Julien Milanesi, Léa Sébastien, Julien Vastenaekels, Fany Lajarthe, Jérôme Ballet, Manuel Cervera-Marzal, Aurélie Carimentrand, Nicolas Merveille, Bruno Frère

This article addresses the issue of sustainability transformations in Ecological Economics through the lens of social movements, by linking environmental resistance movements and alternative movements. We advocate for a more politicized, social-movement oriented and place-based approach to sustainability transformations, and contribute to the development of a more political and emancipatory con...

By: Patricia E. Perkins

Abstract: Economic inequality reduces the political space for addressing climate change, by producing fear-based populism. Only when the safety, social status, and livelihoods of all members of society are assured will voluntary, democratic decisions be possible to reverse climate change and fairly mitigate its effects. Socio-environmental and climate justice, commoning, and decolonization are...