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Scientific paper

Text

Exchange and refurbish: practicing decoloniality through rethinking discards and degrowth

Author:
Erin Araujo

Entry type:
Scientific paper

Year of publication:
2015

Publishers:
societyandspace.com

Language:
English

External content:
To the content

About the article: Degrowth theorists highlight the importance of communities of practice; creating working alternatives to growth is central to the overall project of diverse economies. Erin Araujo’s work with El Cambalache (The Swap), a collective that shares and repairs donated items in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, is an example of a degrowth economy in action. Araujo links the revaluation and repair of discarded materials to decolonization as a way to practice alternatives to singular ways of being and thinking that are based on growth, accumulation, and profit, which she argues is central to colonization and capitalization alike. The proliferation of alternatives to naturalized economic practices is central to both decolonization and degrowth. The work brings up the need to link both discard studies and degrowth to other social movements such as decolonization and feminism, as they share core premises of critiquing and expanding normalized value structures.

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