The Routledge Handbook of Degrowth
is due for release 25 June 2025
“The pluriverse of degrowth is beautifully synthesized in this book. A must-have.” — Kohei Saito, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tokyo, and author of the bestseller Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth (2024)
This handbook takes stock of ‘degrowth’, a concept and movement that has gained increasing visibility in the 2020s. Contributors explain the social and ecological contexts for degrowth’s significance. They elaborate its diverse history and detail its unique approaches and practices. The final section explores degrowth’s challenges and opportunities for the future. See Routledge page and European tour.
Contents
List of figures, tables and boxes
Contributors
Acknowledgements
List of acronyms, symbols and abbreviations
Part I The current growth conjuncture
1 Degrowth has come of age
Anitra Nelson and Vincent Liegey
2 Fossilised metabolism: the social ecology of capitalist growth
Éric Pineault
3 Unequal uses of earth
Timothée Parrique
4 Capitalist crisis and affective alternatives
Marina Sitrin
Part II Degrowth: origins and steppingstones
5 The French origins and pillars of degrowth
François Jarrige and Vincent Liegey
6 Degrowth in Italy: early beginnings, political disputes and a plural social movement
Karl Krӓhmer, Margherita Forgione, Michel Cardito and Mauro Bonaiuti
7 Postwachstum: German roots and currents of degrowth
Matthias Schmelzer, and Barbara Muraca
8 A Catalan way towards degrowth
Borja Nogué-Algueró and Giacomo D’Alisa
9 Accidental degrowth practices: illustrations from Czechia
Slavomíra Ferenčuhová, Eva Fraňková, Tomáš Hoření Samec, and Jan Malý Blažek
10 Greece: real-existing degrowth and its challenges
Marula Tsagkari, Chris Vrettos, and Agisilaos Koulouris
11 ‘Degrowth’ and the implications of English language hegemony
Nick Fitzpatrick
12 Latin American indigenous perspectives meet degrowth
David Barkin
13 Degrowth in an African periphery: from necrocapitalism to a pluriverse of nowtopias
Roland Ngam
Part III Degrowth practices: concepts in action
14 Conviviality and commoning
Andrea Vetter and Matthias Fersterer
15 Autonomy and freedom in individual to societal transformation
Clive L. Spash
16 The degrowth doughnut
Mladen Domazet
17 Frugal abundance: meaning in practice in an Icelandic village
Adrien Plomteux
18 Defining de-Fashion: a manifesto for degrowth
Sandra Niessen
19 Degrowth: health and healthcare
Martin Hensher and Jean-Louis Aillon
20 Holistic care economies: degrowth ways of provisioning and the Global East
Lilian Pungas and Jana Gebauer
21 The pedagogy of degrowth and the political ecology of technology
Luis I. Prádanos
22 Mapping the spectrum of degrowth work
Eeva Houtbeckers
23 Reimagining collaboration: degrowth practitioners, scholars and activists
Orsolya Lazányi, Vincent Liegey, François Schneider and Logan Strenchock
Part IV Degrowth futures: perspectives and strategies
24 Twenty years of degrowth: what has been achieved?
Serge Latouche with Vincent Liegey
25 Roles of utopian thought in a degrowth transformation
Alexandra Köves
26 Growth, degrowth and poverty reduction
Olivier De Schutter
27 Imperial and solidary modes of living: alternatives to eco-imperialism
Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen
28 Prefigurative degrowth politics: decolonisation and the non-aligned movement
Paul Stubbs
29 Ecofeminist and decolonial feminist degrowth futures
Susan Paulson, Anna Saave and Sourayan Mookerjea
30 Fostering degrowth in men: beyond masculinity and the gender binary
Bob Pease
31 Degrowth, urbanisation and spatial planning
Federico Savini
32 Degrowth-aligned commoning organisations
Ben Robra, Sabrina Chakori and Chris Giotitsas
33 Ecosocialism and degrowth
Gareth Dale
34 Beyond growth: beyond divisions
Anuna De Wever (Van Der Heyden) and Lena Hartog
35 Degrowth: future research directions
Anitra Nelson and Vincent Liegey
Index