Library

By: Borja Nogué-Algueró

Shipping carries virtually all internationally traded goods. Major commercial ports are fully integrated into transnational production and distribution systems, enabling the circulation of massive flows of energy and materials in the global economy. Port activity and development are usually associated with positive socio-economic effects, such as increased GDP and employment, but the indust...

By: Michel Bauwens, Alex Pazaitis

Towards a P2P Infrastructure for a Socially-Just Circular Society How shared perma-circular supply chains, post-blockchain distributed ledgers, protocol cooperatives, and three new forms of post-capitalist accounting, could very well save the planet. The key issue addressed in this study is how to change a system which incentivizes and rewards extraction — but cannot recognize and reward ...

By: Christoph Sanders, Nadine Kaufmann, Julian Wortmann

Abstract: Considering education in the context of making and unmaking sustainable futures, a growing relevance is attributed to the role of shared beliefs or mental infrastructures which shape the way people perceive crises and solutions. The currently dominant capitalist economic paradigm is seen as one such powerful belief that generates imaginaries which cannot accommodate sustainable futur...

By: Neera M. Singh

Abstract: Struggles for Environmental Justice, more widespread in the global South, are often framed as traditional societies defending “old ways of life”; while degrowth, a relatively new movement in the global North is seen as striving for a “new ways of life.” I argue that both assert or aspire for other ways of being and belonging to the world and open possibilities for post-capitalist fut...

By: Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, Brian Petersen

Abstract: In the midst of a wave of market expansion, carbon markets have been proposed as the best way to address global climate change. While some argue that carbon markets represent a modern example of a Polanyian counter-movement to the environmental crisis, we adopt a structural interpretation of Polanyi to refute this claim. Carbon markets represent a further expansion of markets that fa...

By: Angelos Varvarousis

Abstract: The decolonization of the social imaginary has been proposed as an important dimension of the transition towards a degrowth society. However, although omnipresent in the degrowth literature, the terms “social imaginary” and “social imaginary significations” have not been adequately explained. This creates a level of mystification that limits the analytical value of the degrowth frame...

By: Karl Frost

Abstract: Environmental Injustice has been intrinsic to Canadian extractivism, with First Nations displaced from their traditional territories and their cultural identity suppressed through an explicit policy of cultural genocide to make way for colonial extractivist practices. Likewise, this extractivism has long been legitimized in Canada through a rhetoric of economic growth. This paper pre...

By: Katherine Sobering

Abstract: This article examines how rumors impact democracy and transparency in a cooperative workplace. Although literature on rumors generally analyzes them as negative to workplace culture, the author argues that rumors constitute a critical aspect of democratic participation. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a worker-recuperated business in Argentina, the author shows how mem...

By: Brian Tokar

Local action is often the best remedy for the failings of the current system — a worldwide confederation of democratic communities can have the same impact at a global scale.

By: International Editorial Team of Degrowth.info

We live in troubling times that require bold ideas and transformative solutions. For many ‘degrowth’ has become the beacon of hope that shines through the darkness, illuminating our path forward. With your help, ‘degrowth.info’ will make this light shine as bright as possible. Please support our efforts via our crowdfunding campaign.

By: Pasi Heikkurinen

Abstract: The call to transform the growth society lacks an analysis of the human will. Problematically for degrowth, the enactment of this so-called will to transform has undesired matter-energetic consequences. Every act of transformation requires matter–energy, adding to the cumulative throughput of societies. To revert the ecospherical metabolism from a state of overshoot to one of degrowt...

By: Mladen Domazet, Branko Ančić

Abstract: Inspired by the thesis that an alliance between degrowth and environmental justice (EJ) movements is essential (Akbulut et al., this issue), this paper presents the findings of empirical research concerning the pitfalls and possibilities of such an alliance as understood by prominent Croatian EJ movement leaders. We outline the context of the Croatian EJ movement through two specific...

By: Lilian Pungas

Abstract: Agriculture is not only an essential nexus between society and nature but in its current industrial form also a possible threat to ecological stability. This article explores how a supplement to the conventional agrifood system alleviates the negative consequences of the industrial food production system that manifest through the metabolic rift (Marx, 1981). During fieldwork in Eston...

By: Bengi Akbulut

Abstract: Critical perspectives on economic growth have laid bare the fragility of the assumed link between material growth and socio-ecological wellbeing. The appeal of economic growth, however, goes beyond the economic sphere. As a societal goal, growth is often mobilized to pre-empt and/or co-opt opposition around issues of social justice and redistribution. Not only does the constitution o...

By: Max Koch, Martin Fritz

Abstract: The emerging concept of sustainable welfare attempts to integrate environmental sustainability and social welfare research. Oriented at a mid-term re-embedding of Western production and consumption norms into planetary limits, it suggests the development of “eco-social” policies in the rich countries. In this theoretical context, this article empirically investigates the relationship...

By: Mary Gearey, Neil Ravenscroft

Abstract: 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 a...

By: Pasi Heikkurinen, Pierre Tosi, Jana Lozanoska

Abstract: Hannah Arendt's three-fold conceptualization of human activity offers a useful base for understanding the necessity of degrowth and the kinds of activities required to achieve it. The article argues that the different roles of labour, work, and action should be acknowledged and scrutinized in detail to appreciate the underpinnings of contemporary over-production and over-consumption,...

By: Julia Steinberger

When the BBC asked me if I would participate in a debate panel on climate change, capitalism and democracy, I first panicked and then said yes. All I really wanted to do this week was finish up and (re)submit some research I started a long time ago. This research shows that, despite their massive growth, energy

By: Giorgos Kallis, Federico Demaria, Karen Bakker

Abstract: The term ‘décroissance’ (degrowth) signifies a process of political and social transformation that reduces a society's material and energy use while improving the quality of life. Degrowth calls for decolonizing imaginaries and institutions from – in Ursula Le Guin's words – ‘a one-way future consisting only of growth’. Recent scholarship has focused on the ecological and social cost...

Abstract: Insofar as development implies economic growth, the term 'sustainable development' appears to some as a contradiction in terms. However, such conclusions still lack a thorough examination of the conceptual structure of the two terms between which there is a purported contradiction. In order to address this issue, the present paper scrutinises some of the assumptions which underwrite ...