Library

By: Erik Assadourian

Introduction: I’m sure that some will criticize the insensitivity of the timing of this essay. How can you talk about Puerto Rico, climate change, and degrowth at this tragic time? But what time is better than now? There are only going to be more disasters and more tragic times ahead. And if after each one we spend billions on rebuilding costly infrastructure, the resulting carbon emissions are...

By: Friederike Habermann, Anja Humburg

Debattenbeitrag in der taz "Gegen eine Vereinnahmung der Postwachstumsdebatte von rechts hilft: ehrlich über Entfremdung und Privilegien sprechen."

By: Marc Clauson

Introduction: Tom Rogan in the Washington Examiner wrote a very interesting piece on the new expression of an old idea–”degrowth.” (see http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/the-far-left-has-an-idiotic-new-craze-reduce-economic-growth/article/2631274). He leads with these words: “Even the Soviets sought to maximize economic output. But today’s contemporary far-left are far bolder: they believe that...

By: International Ecolinguistics Association

What´s the course about? The social and ecological issues that humanity currently faces are so severe that they call into question the fundamental stories that societies are based on. Ecolinguistics provides tools for revealing the stories we live by, questioning them from an ecological perspective, and contributing to the search for new stories to live by. The course examines a wide range of t...

By: Arturo Escobar

Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina, explains the term "Civilizational Transitions", its relationship with degrowth and environmental justice as well as the crisis of the current civilizational model and alternatives to that, such as "Buen vivir". Youtube-channel EnvJustice Vocabulary

By: Mladen Domazet, Branko Ančić, Logan Richardson

Keywords: Degrowth, environmentalism, attitudes survey, comparative, Europe

By: Susan Paulson

Key words: degrowth, transition, climate change, socioecological systems

By: Emanuele Leonardi

Teaser: Leonardi reviews Giorgos Kallis’ new book “In defense of degrowth”, a volume that provides activists and academics alike with a detailed map of the degrowth discourse, with its theoretical controversies and opportunities for political alliances to come. The book in the media library

By: Giorgos Kallis, Aaron Vansintjan

From the book's web page: The idea of degrowth is contentious, often misunderstood, and (perhaps paradoxically) growing in popularity. In this book, Giorgos Kallis, one of the movement's leading thinkers, presents an accessible, inspiring, and enjoyable defense. The book's chapters—a compilation of his opinion essays, newspaper articles, blog posts, and 'minifestos'—range from topics such as ec...

By: Christian Garmann Johnsen, Mette Nelund, Lena Olaison, Bent Meier Sørensen

Abstract of the Special Issue: Perpetual economic growth is an underlying assumption of the contemporary organization of capitalist society. The idea of growth is embedded not only in the corpus of economic thought but also in economic institutions. Against this backdrop, this special issue opens up for critical and creative thinking around organizational issues related to growth, economy, sust...

By: François Schneider

Francois Schneider defends the use of the term "degrowth". From the text: . . . If degrowth was the name of a multinational of toothpaste, Drews and Antal would be right: degrowth is not the right word to gain (market) competition. However degrowth is not just about raising attention, being interesting, provocative, easy to remember. It actually has a meaning! When I was doing a tour of conf...

By: Federico Demaria

From the text: . . . In conclusion, let me outline our hypothesis. If growth has been a central pillar of stability in wealthy countries throughout the 20th century, then it is reasonable to argue that its lack in growth-oriented societies might create instability. I propose to read under this light too, but of course not only, the recent emerging political conjuncture, from Trump to Brexit, in...

By: Saamah Abdallah

Degrowth is a post-materialist movement, which places value on the biosphere, human wellbeing, and justice, above and beyond the possession of material goods (Degrowth Declaration, 2008). And yet surveys suggest that levels of materialism are higher in post-socialist countries than in Western European countries (Kyvelidis, 2001). In the sixth round of the European Social Survey (2012), nine of ...

By: Derek Rasmussen

My presentation seeks to weave my 20 years of work with Nunavut Inuit with my meditation teaching among non-Indigenous Euro-Canadians. ‘The Great Transformation’ of market relations compelled a great transformation of learning: disembedding and extracting it from communities and converting it into a scarce new substance called Education. Education is hydroponic cultural transmission for uproot...

By: Liisa Haapanen

The positive vision of green growth and the negative outlook of a recession are the prevailing images of future for a growth-centred society. They are challenged by various alternative views of a post-growth society. The purpose of this paper is to specify and elaborate the desired future end-states and scenarios put forward in contemporary growth critique. A literature review of the following ...

By: Daniel Gerbery, Lidija Živčič, Lidija Živčič, Richard Filcak, Sergio Tirado Herrero

Austerity-driven, unsustainable degrowth has resulted in a surge of energy poverty in EU and beyond. Understood as the inability of households to secure a materially- and socially-necessitated level of energy services in the home, energy poverty has become a widespread societal concern that demands structural responses. Tensions are foreseen between energy poverty alleviation and degrowth. On ...

By: Elisabeth Skarðhamar Olsen, Lisa L. Gezon, Lisa L. Gezon, Eeva Berglund

Degrowth calls for decolonizing human identities and relationships from values and visions that exalt the endless expansion of production and consumption. This multi-session explores paths toward such decolonization through initiatives to recuperate, adapt and invent sociocultural systems that change the way we humans produce and consume goods and services, and—more powerfully—the ways in which...

By: Zoltan Ferencz

The emerging environmental problems in the 1960s and 1970s were the basis for “Grassroots movements”. The explicit focus on ecological and social sustainability, which is a defining characteristic of ecovillages, arose in the 1990s. In earlier communities, of course, there had been efforts to live in ways that were ecological and in close contact with nature, but the specific sustainability foc...

By: Olli Tammilehto

The global growth society is rapidly destroying its ecological base and consequently also itself. Crushing one's own foundation is surely a mark of stupidity. The madness in question, however, is of societal quality, not reducible to the properties of individuals. On the contrary, according to many opinion polls individual human beings widely recognize the absurdity of economic growth and the i...

By: Adam Cajka

An average village in India does not really benefit from the current economic system. The story of Kuthumbakkam, a village in Tamil Nadu, shows how people can locally create viable economy based on the regional sources and inter-village exchange. Main charasteristics of the Network growth economy are high localisation of production and consumption and focus on self-sufficiency. Initial concept...