Our very first book project! Degrowth & Strategy

Degrowth & Strategy: How to bring about social-ecological transformation

Since August 2020, a team of eight motivated degrowth scholars and activists has been working on a conference-follow up publication entitled Degrowth & Strategy. It highlights the importance of engaging with strategy in the degrowth movement, builds on contributions from the Degrowth Vienna 2020 Conference, and strives to provide a meaningful addition to the existing literature on degrowth.

Many publications introduce, justify and build a powerful argument for degrowth, but so far little attention has been paid to how to contribute to making transformation happen as a social movement. Instead of making the case for degrowth, our publication examines possible strategies to advance it. It theoretically explores tools for critically evaluating strategies, but also discusses a broad range of strategies in practice, covering different needs and systems such as mobility, housing, energy, labour and care. For this, the publication brings on board activists and practitioners working in the fields listed, and initiates their collaboration with degrowth scholars.

A lot has been done already: A full book concept has been developed during autumn; a comprehensive outline with hand-picked authors has been created – you can find our table of contents in the visuals. We are currently in the process of editing draft chapters. We are happy to see that more than 40 authors have joined the journey, and that publishers have expressed interest in working with us! We hope that Degrowth & Strategy can be found on bookshops’ shelves in early 2022.

Find out more about the publication project on our website!

We aim to publish an accessible book that will attract scholars and activists interested in the question of strategy for radical social-ecological change. Degrowth & Strategy advances the academic debate on social-ecological transformation, but can also serve as a guidepost for practitioners and activists in reflecting their own strategic approaches.

We’ve kept this book project rolling since August 2020, thanks to the generous funds of MA7 (City of Vienna) and contributions out of Degrowth Vienna’s own pocket. But our supplies will run out in the summer. We would be grateful for your donation that would help us round up the project, ensure the book gets published, and thus fill a major gap in the degrowth literature.

We aim to raise 5260€ which will be used as follows:

• Two partially paid coordination positions keep the project going, but our funds will run out in the summer. That is about the time when the project will need intense editing coordination work. 1630€ of the money raised will therefore be used to that end.

• When the book is published, we will need someone to coordinate our promotion and dissemination efforts. We planned 1630€ to remunerate them.

• We also need someone to coordinate the work of the publication working group during the summer and throughout the autumn. 1000€ will remunerate this work.

• After the publication we will organise five book launch workshops so our audience can engage and exchange with some of the contributing authors. For this we will require 1000€.

Despite the paid positions listed above, we’d like to highlight that the project is only possible thanks to time and energy that our editorial team and authors generously donate!