Logo degrowth

Blog

A blog series on strategy in the degrowth movement

By: Nathan Barlow

09.01.2019

Image

My colleagues and I wrote an initial blog post arguing that the question of strategy has received too little attention in the degrowth movement, and by degrowth scholars. Further, we observed that the discourse on strategy in degrowth was excessively plural, being open to all strategies in all contexts, rather than considering case-appropriateness (spatially, temporally, sectorally etc.).

Therefore, we argued that degrowth’s approach to strategy could be described as “strategic indeterminence”, accepting all strategies as valid, equal, and non-conflicting, without critically evaluating the possible tensions between strategies and inadequacies of some strategies in certain contexts . We postulate this indeterminence originates from the degrowth movement’s lack of coherent ‘goals’ (where to move towards?) and systemic understanding of transformation processes (or a theory of change). This makes it incredibly difficult to then make an informed evaluation of strategies and support practitioners in co-creating strategies for degrowth. We hope to open up more space for reflection on these important questions in order to further support and learn from practitioners, activists, and policy-makers working towards degrowth. Towards this end, we invited the degrowth community to respond to our piece and commence a dialogue. We are very excited to share the responses and grateful to the authors for their insights, support and critiques. Lastly, this series has become more relevant in the last year as a group of organizers and academics in Vienna have come together to organize a thematic conference on strategy in degrowth for 2020.

Ten-part series on Strategy in the degrowth movement

0. Beyond Visions and Projects: the need for a debate on strategy in the degrowth movement (Christoph Ambach, Nathan Barlow, Pietro Cigna, Joe Herbert, Iris Frey)

1. On strategies for socioecological transformation (Panos Petridis)

2. Before strategy, who is strategising? (Jocelyne Sze and Omar Saif)

3. Degrowth and transformation: a reflection (Christos Zografos)

4. Paving the way for post-growth policy-making: A co-creative process to advance the degrowth movement (Jonathan Barth, Lukas Hardt, Elena Hofferberth, Colleen Schneider)

5. Strategies for a degrowth transformation: How useful are historical analogies? (Giuseppe Feola)

6. Strategies for Cultural Change: Degrowth and the Use of Space (Francesca Van Daele)

7. Entry Points for Transformative Politics: The Power of Unstated Premises (Timmo Krüger)

8. Building Counter-Institutions: A Call for Activism beyond Raising Awareness (Joël Foramitti)

9. From Taming to Dismantling: Degrowth and Anti-capitalist Strategy (Ekaterina Chertkovskaya)

10. Reflecting on the emerging strategy debate in the degrowth movement (Nathan Barlow and Joe Herbert)

About the author

Nathan Barlow

Nathan is currently a PhD candidate at the WU in Vienna. His research focuses on degrowth and strategies for social ecological transformation. He is an active member of Degrowth Vienna, and recently edited a collected volume titled "Degrowth & Strategy: how to bring about social ecological transformation". He enjoys working with well-organized groups to realize collective goals.

More from this author

Share on the corporate technosphere

Support us

Blog

Degrowth: the transformation needed to combat climate breakdown

By: Joe Herbert

Previous global ‘efforts’ to tackle climate breakdown have failed dramatically, because they have been based on a fundamentally flawed economic paradigm: growth. The concept of growth is an altar at which economists, politicians and businesspeople across the political spectrum have worshipped for decades. Unfortunately, where the planet’s long-term habitability is concerned, it is this obsessi...

Blog

D.E.growth: A Small Change in the Slogan with Large Benefits

Antal fig3 2

By: Miklós Antal

In a recent article with Stefan Drews, we discussed why degrowth might be an unfortunate name and slogan for the alternative economics movement. We listed several expressions that could possibly be better, but we were also upfront about their disadvantages. Here I propose a new term that might combine the advantages of the word degrowth with those of its more positive alternatives. For an asse...

Blog

Degrowth – an anticapitalist movement?!

Degrowth conference 2014 demonstration foto danyonited climate justice leipzig

By Ulrich Schachtschneider A new star is born in the sky of the social movements: the degrowth-movement. The traditional left, however, observes this novelty somewhat critically – degrowth being a path that seems possible without the traditional left. Marxist, feminist and anti-racist analyses were largely missed at the latest Degrowth-Conference and where they were present, participants eyed ...