Dialogues for Degrowth
Transdisciplinary Perspectives for Sustainable and Inclusive Futures
Published on 9. May 2025
Book
Hardback
258 pages
978-1-0353-2076-9 (ISBN)
Description
This essential book explores a diverse array of perspectives on degrowth, a movement critical of the global capitalist system pursuing economic growth at all costs. Contributing authors provide insights into the connections between degrowth and fields such as art, architecture, literature, and post-development, setting an agenda for future research.
Bringing together theories from different research backgrounds, chapters engage with degrowth in the context of dance, migration, strategy games, fashion, and solarpunk among others. The book also investigates the impact of capitalist-colonial-patriarchal hierarchies on relationships at the personal and global level, reflecting on key forms of resistance and highlighting opportunities to break away from colonial legacies. Ultimately, authors emphasize the indispensable role of degrowth strategies in cultivating an inclusive and sustainable future based on justice and equity.
Students and scholars of economics, geography, politics, and sustainability studies will benefit from this book's forward-thinking analysis of degrowth. Its interdisciplinary focus also makes this a valuable resource for academics in fields such as architecture, feminist and queer studies, and literary studies.
Bringing together theories from different research backgrounds, chapters engage with degrowth in the context of dance, migration, strategy games, fashion, and solarpunk among others. The book also investigates the impact of capitalist-colonial-patriarchal hierarchies on relationships at the personal and global level, reflecting on key forms of resistance and highlighting opportunities to break away from colonial legacies. Ultimately, authors emphasize the indispensable role of degrowth strategies in cultivating an inclusive and sustainable future based on justice and equity.
Students and scholars of economics, geography, politics, and sustainability studies will benefit from this book's forward-thinking analysis of degrowth. Its interdisciplinary focus also makes this a valuable resource for academics in fields such as architecture, feminist and queer studies, and literary studies.
Reviews / Votes
'What captures attention is the form. The chapters convey the depth of singular voices, and the dialogues transform them into a living polyphony. Such rare alternation turns the book into a permanent conference set down on paper. It is a bold gesture, towards a better future.' -- Nadia Boutaleb, Natural Built Social Environment Health 'Dialogues for Degrowth is the book feminist degrowthers have been waiting for! With diverse voices and refreshingly unconventional topics, it offers a vivid vision of a care-full degrowth society. By engaging with each other in dedicated dialogue chapters, the authors bring feminist principles to life.' -- Corinna Dengler, WU Vienna, Austria 'Dialogues for Degrowth is indeed a "bridge builder": its diverse and interdisciplinary arguments position degrowth as an essential, anti-colonial framework for global transformation. In times of regressive dystopias and pessimistic imaginations, the book inspires radical hope by exploring feminist, reparative and internationalist pathways to fight for the future we want.' -- Sabrina Fernandes, Alameda Institute, BrazilMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cheltenham
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-0353-2076-9 (9781035320769)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Edited by Ksenija Hanacek, Marula Tsagkari and Brototi Roy, Postdoctoral Fellows, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain. They are also members of the Barcelona-based think-and-act tank Research&Degrowth International
Content
Contents
Introduction: interdisciplinary perspectives for sustainable and
inclusive futures 1
Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek, and Brototi Roy
PART I WAVES OF DEGROWTH
1 Accounting for coloniality: the case for structural colonial
and climate reparations 8
Morena Hanbury Lemos
2 Just work for a just transition? Degrowth and the future of
dignified work 21
Riya Raphael
3 Degrowth at the Queer Cafe 33
Lena Weber
4 Blue degrowth at the crossroads: contesting the oceanic
sustainable development paradigm 44
Borja Nogue-Alguero, Maria Hadjimichael, and Irmak Ertoer
Dialogue on waves of degrowth 56
Borja Nogue-Alguero, Lena Weber, Riya Raphael, Morena
Hanbury Lemos, Tonny Nowshin, Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija
Hanacek and Brototi Roy
PART II ENGAGING DEGROWTH WITH OLD AND
NEW STORIES AND PRACTICES
5 Rethinking the role of the past for a degrowth transition
with Walter Benjamin: a postfigurative approach 62
Lucia Munoz Sueiro
6 Analysing the circular economy as a myth 73
Sofia Rafaella Greaves
7 Let's draw: spoken poetry as a form of resistance in Inner
Mongolia 84
Jesse Segura
8 Dancing degrowth: 'fleshing out' a new economy 97
Julia Pond
Dialogue on engaging degrowth with old and new stories and practices 108
Lucia Mu-oz-Sueiro, Sofia Rafaella Greaves, Jesse Segura,
Julia Pond, Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek and Brototi Roy
PART III DEGROWTH THROUGH STRATEGY,
DESIGN, AND IMAGINATION
9 Quilombola communities and degrowth: an architectural
contribution 116
Franciney Carreiro de Franca
10 Fashion and degrowth: contradiction? Exploring
interpretations and functions of fashion 129
Aniko Gal
11 Imagining the degrowth strategy game 139
Carlos Moreno Azqueta
12 Solarpunk: utopian realism as a degrowth aesthetic or why
degrowthers should be solarpunks 148
Lee Amaduzzi
Dialogue on degrowth through strategy, design, and imagination 159
Franciney Carreiro de Franca, Aniko Gal, Carlos Moreno
Azqueta, Lee Amaduzzi, Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek and Brototi Roy
PART IV TRANSVERSAL STRUCTURAL
TRANSFORMATIONS OF DEGROWTH
13 The global food predicament: insights into overcoming
the capitalist structures and dynamics 166
Arpita Bisht
14 Reflections on migration, degrowth and post-development 182
Claudia Santos
15 Just friends: intimate relations in a degrowth future 194
Nora Krenmayr, Monika Austaller and Luzia Strasser
16 Unlearning as education practice: exploring learning
conditions that support transformation 206
Isabel Chender
Dialogue on transversal structural transformations of degrowth 220
Arpita Bisht, Isabel Chender, Nora Krenmayr, Cl?udia Santos,
Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek and Brototi Roy
Epilogue: what lies ahead in the path to globally just world making 226
Tonny Nowshin
Introduction: interdisciplinary perspectives for sustainable and
inclusive futures 1
Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek, and Brototi Roy
PART I WAVES OF DEGROWTH
1 Accounting for coloniality: the case for structural colonial
and climate reparations 8
Morena Hanbury Lemos
2 Just work for a just transition? Degrowth and the future of
dignified work 21
Riya Raphael
3 Degrowth at the Queer Cafe 33
Lena Weber
4 Blue degrowth at the crossroads: contesting the oceanic
sustainable development paradigm 44
Borja Nogue-Alguero, Maria Hadjimichael, and Irmak Ertoer
Dialogue on waves of degrowth 56
Borja Nogue-Alguero, Lena Weber, Riya Raphael, Morena
Hanbury Lemos, Tonny Nowshin, Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija
Hanacek and Brototi Roy
PART II ENGAGING DEGROWTH WITH OLD AND
NEW STORIES AND PRACTICES
5 Rethinking the role of the past for a degrowth transition
with Walter Benjamin: a postfigurative approach 62
Lucia Munoz Sueiro
6 Analysing the circular economy as a myth 73
Sofia Rafaella Greaves
7 Let's draw: spoken poetry as a form of resistance in Inner
Mongolia 84
Jesse Segura
8 Dancing degrowth: 'fleshing out' a new economy 97
Julia Pond
Dialogue on engaging degrowth with old and new stories and practices 108
Lucia Mu-oz-Sueiro, Sofia Rafaella Greaves, Jesse Segura,
Julia Pond, Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek and Brototi Roy
PART III DEGROWTH THROUGH STRATEGY,
DESIGN, AND IMAGINATION
9 Quilombola communities and degrowth: an architectural
contribution 116
Franciney Carreiro de Franca
10 Fashion and degrowth: contradiction? Exploring
interpretations and functions of fashion 129
Aniko Gal
11 Imagining the degrowth strategy game 139
Carlos Moreno Azqueta
12 Solarpunk: utopian realism as a degrowth aesthetic or why
degrowthers should be solarpunks 148
Lee Amaduzzi
Dialogue on degrowth through strategy, design, and imagination 159
Franciney Carreiro de Franca, Aniko Gal, Carlos Moreno
Azqueta, Lee Amaduzzi, Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek and Brototi Roy
PART IV TRANSVERSAL STRUCTURAL
TRANSFORMATIONS OF DEGROWTH
13 The global food predicament: insights into overcoming
the capitalist structures and dynamics 166
Arpita Bisht
14 Reflections on migration, degrowth and post-development 182
Claudia Santos
15 Just friends: intimate relations in a degrowth future 194
Nora Krenmayr, Monika Austaller and Luzia Strasser
16 Unlearning as education practice: exploring learning
conditions that support transformation 206
Isabel Chender
Dialogue on transversal structural transformations of degrowth 220
Arpita Bisht, Isabel Chender, Nora Krenmayr, Cl?udia Santos,
Marula Tsagkari, Ksenija Hanacek and Brototi Roy
Epilogue: what lies ahead in the path to globally just world making 226
Tonny Nowshin