During years we have looked for the sacred graal: the ultimate definition of degrowth. We only find many perspectives, leading to many definitions of degrowth. These different definitions translate the wealth of perspectives related to the idea of degrowth!
Definitions of degrowth
The variety of concern makes a single degrowth definition difficult: as each actor of degrowth has a different entry points to degrowth, there are naturally different starts for degrowth definitions, but it does not prevent the inclusion of the different concerns.
Here we overview some of the main perspectives:
- Bioeconomics: A collective decision to produce and consume less locally and globally… (less exploitation of natural resources & people) initiated by activists in the 2000’s.
- Anti-utilitarian: A slogan, a “missile word”, meaning to repoliticize social and environmental debates, creating dissidence to the present economic representations and demystifying growth, sustainable development and progress.
- A political, economic, and social movement based on ecological economics and anticonsumerist and anticapitalist ideas.
Democratic: degrowth challenges the hegemony of growth and calls for a democratically led redistributive downscaling of production and consumption in industrialized countries as a means to achieve environmental sustainability, social justice and well being” (Demaria et al, 2013).
A comprehensive but less concrete definition of degrowth would look as follows:
Degrowth is a space of dialog where different ideals – democracy, justice, agro-ecology, bioeconomy, conviviality, good life – meet each other in order to constitute a sort of practical and theoretical utopia.
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