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Blog • 11.08.2016

Grassroots Movements, Degrowth and ‘New Economies’

Transitnewecon degrowthblogarticle image

By: Iris Kunze

A Study on Transformative Social Innovation There are numerous grassroots movements and initiatives worldwide with the ambition to contribute to transformative change towards more sustainable, resilient and just societies. Many of them have a specific vision on the economy and relate to alternative visions of a ‘New Economy’. The research project TRANSIT highlights four prominent strands of ne...

Blog • 07.07.2016

Undoing the Ideology of Growth: Hegemony, Path Dependencies and Power in the History of the Growth Paradigm

Hegemony of growth

By: Matthias Schmelzer

Degrowth aims at undoing growth. Undoing growth both at the level of social structures and social imaginaries. Although the focus is very often on the latter, i.e. the “decolonization of imaginaries” as put by Serge Latouche, the degrowth perspective still seems to lack a comprehensive understanding of the role of ideology, the path dependencies and the power that shape these imaginations. Degr...

Blog • 30.06.2016

Call for the 6th International Degrowth Conference!

The Call for the 6th International Degrowth Conference is now open. The international conferences on degrowth are central landmarks and moments of convergence of the international degrowth intellectual and social movements. They offer an unique opportunity for bringing together scholars with other members of civil society and demonstrating a different way of organizing conferences. A central...

Blog • 15.06.2016

“We need resistance – otherwise climate change will strip us of the perspective of a good life for everyone.“

The 2nd Degrowth Summerschool will take place on the Climate Camp in the Rhineland from the 19th to the 23rd of August 2016. “Skills for System Change“ will be the motto of a diverse programme dealing with alternatives to the current economic system. Right after the Summer School has ended, the Action Lab will take place from the 24th to the 29th of August. Melanie and Milan, who are involved i...

Blog • 23.06.2016

Degrowth by designed disaster?

No to austerity

By: Lasse Thiele

How the conflation with neoliberalism and austerity unfairly reduces the idea of degrowth to absurdity – and where the degrowth movement can turn for answers to the crisis. The degrowth movement has been developed in response to neoliberal reality, neoliberalism's comically reductive view of human nature, its ecological blindness and the rise in social inequality it has brought about. Austerit...

Blog • 23.05.2016

Is Sustainability Only for the Privileged?

Urban gardening

By: Lucie Bardos

On the Need for Collaboration Between Social Movements and Activisms Not that long ago, I left North America and arrived fresh and starry-eyed in Lund, Sweden, ready to begin my master’s degree in a program entitled Culture, Power and Sustainability. In my second year, I decided to write my thesis about the Transition Town movement, a social movement out of Great Britain born of the need to ac...