society-space relations, geography

Abstract: The degrowth debate is primarily concerned with the impossibility of reconciling sustainability and economic growth. Another, less explicit layer of this debate deals with the relation between society and space. While this is a genuinely geographical problem, geographical contributions to the degrowth debate have been sparse thus far. The presentation will offer a geographical perspective on the visions of society-nature relationships put forth in the degrowth debate and contends that these visions conform neither to the traditional, nor to the late-modern forms of society-space relations. Instead, degrowth visions may offer a ‘third way’ of relating society to space. Analysing and theoretically elaborating on this potentially new modus operandi promises to be insightful for geography and degrowth scholars alike.