Degrowth, anthropology, and activist research.

Towards a tool-kit of engaged research for the empowerment of degrowth movements and alter communities.

How can the social sciences and in particular anthropology best contribute to empower and foster degrowth projects, alter communities and the socio-ecological movement? And what strategies of in particular activist anthropological research can contribute to the processes of transformation? This paper offers a perspective of activist anthropological research as a way to achieve that aim. Research on degrowth has a rich history of engaged scholarship as activism (e.g. Martinez Allier 2014; Cattaneo 2006; Chatterton et al. 2009) and this paper suggests that 'the tool kit' of activist research that already exists can fruitfully be enriched by an anthropological approach to engaged scholarship.

Drawing on the empirical activist research of the author with and in transition projects (in Germany) and on findings of recent engaged anthropology the contribution outlines some additional methods and strategies (translation, weaving, et al.) that might help to bring forward the merging of science and activism. It thus argues to take the 'ontological politics of science' (Law and Urry 2004) more seriously than it has been done to date.

This media entry was a contribution to the special session „Degrowth, anthropology, and activist research. “ at the 5th International Degrowth Conference in Budapest in 2016.