Celebrating Global Degrowth Day

How do you study degrowth as an academic?

‘I was trained as an ecological economist and a political ecologist, and these areas are still the strongholds of degrowth research. These days, I am interested in expanding the degrowth agenda to other fields, like agrarian studies, anthropology, and psychology.

'Furthermore, I am also keen on enriching the movement with contributions from the global south. It turns out that many degrowth ideas have deep roots in the global south under other labels. Right now, I am preparing an article that draws on the work of Indian radical economists to show that there has been an ‘Indian theory of degrowth’ for quite some time now. Even though this particular label wasn’t actually used.’

You are one of the initiators of the ‘Ontgroei platform’. Can you tell us more about this platform?

‘We launched Ontgroei in 2018 and it became a vibrant network of researchers, students, activists, and practitioners. Ontgroei has now the status of a non-profit foundation and we managed to have paid positions in it, which greatly improves the workflow.

'The movement has literally boomed in the Netherlands since the International Degrowth Conference we organized in The Hague and at the ISS in 2021. Since then, we receive monthly, if not weekly, invitations to participate in debates, give talks, or do interviews.’

Together with your ISS colleagues Professor Wendy Harcourt and Dr Augustina A Solera you actively engage with this topic. Can you tell us more about some of your activities?

‘Next year, I will start to teach more on degrowth. The idea is to go deeper and trigger more student-led research.

Up until now, the ISS students were mostly exposed to degrowth via one introductory lecture in our general course ‘The Making of Development’. But that was already great: the ISS was probably the first development studies institute to expose all its students to degrowth ideas! 

'Now is the time to take it to the next level. Together with a few friends and colleagues, we are exploring ways to mutually enrich our respective decolonial and degrowth teaching and research.

'Furthermore, in our Political Ecology Research Group new things are in the pipeline: a new book, a few articles, and a conference  The latest piece about the subject was published on The Contrapuntal platform.

'I invite everybody to subscribe to our ISS’ degrowth news below. We will keep those interested informed on our upcoming degrowth activities!’

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