Overview
This handbook takes stock of ‘degrowth’, a concept and movement gaining increasing visibility in the 2020s. Contributors explain contexts for degrowth’s significance, elaborate its diverse history and detail its unique approaches, practices, challenges and potential futures. Part I sets the ecological, economic and political contexts framing degrowth’s evolution as a significant concept for societies facing the challenges of deepening socio-political inequities and ecological unsustainabilities. Part II identifies themes characterising degrowth movements in a sample of distinctive countries, starting with its origins in France. Part III shows degrowth ‘concepts in action’, explaining in practical ways the meanings of terms such as ‘conviviality’, ‘degrowth doughnut’, ‘frugal abundance’, ‘commoning’ and ‘defashioning’. Part IV offers analyses and forward-looking imaginaries for degrowth from the perspectives of distinctive agents, agendas and theoretical frameworks. Contributors engage with topics such as ecofeminist futures, utopian thought and show how degrowth is necessary to address poverty. Highly experienced and knowledgeable contributors from varied scholarly and practitioner fields address a range of strategic, activist, policy and research questions in this handbook. Grounded in empirical cases, they identify significant social and ecological challenges, relevant to students, researchers, activists, policymakers and practitioners at various levels within the wide range of fields in which degrowth can be applied.
Full Product Details
Author: Anitra Nelson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint: Routledge
Weight: 0.453kg
ISBN: 9781032645247
ISBN 10: 1032645245
Pages: 504
Publication Date: 17 July 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Availability: Not yet available
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Reviews
""The pluriverse of degrowth is beautifully synthesized in this book. A must-have."" Kohei Saito, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tokyo, author of bestseller Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth (2024) ""We stand at a crossroads. Or to be honest, a little farther, on the path to chaos. But we still have choice. Embracing strategy and practice, this handbook on degrowth comes just in time to open horizons. I can’t wait for it to be translated into French!"" Corinne Morel Darleux, essayist – Être heureux avec moins (2023) ""The Routledge Handbook of Degrowth is an essential and inspiring resource for anyone seeking to understand the history, diversity, and transformative potential of the degrowth movement. Anitra Nelson and Vincent Liegey have assembled a groundbreaking collection that will guide researchers, activists, and policymakers alike."" Giorgos Kallis, ICREA professor at ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona, author of degrowth classics, such as In Defence of Degrowth (2017) Degrowth (2018), Limits (2019) ""As glaciers are melting and Los Angeles is destroyed by raging fires, struggling for a world beyond capitalist development and growth has never been more urgent. The Routledge Handbook of Degrowth is a rich, enlightening, comprehensive guide towards it. Definitely a must read."" Silvia Federici, Hofstra University (New York), author of classic Caliban and the Witch (2004) ""The Routledge Handbook of Degrowth deftly diagnoses the disease of global growthism, and brims with a plenitude of inspiring living examples, challenges, complexities and possibilities for a future of convivial, relational joy that we know is possible."" Helena Norberg-Hodge, esteemed author, filmmaker and founding director of Local Futures
Author Information
Anitra Nelson is an activist scholar and Honorary Principal Fellow at the Informal Urbanism Research Hub (InfUr-), University of Melbourne (Australia). Among numerous degrowth publications, she is co-editor of Housing for Degrowth: Principles, Models, Challenges and Opportunities (2018) and Food for Degrowth: Perspectives and Practices (2021) collections, and co-author of Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide (2020). See https://anitranelson.info/ Vincent Liegey is an engineer, interdisciplinary researcher and lecturer on degrowth. He has co-authored several books on degrowth including Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide (2020, Pluto Press), and Décroissance, Fake or Not (2022, Tana Editions). He is one of the coordinators of the international degrowth conferences and of Cargonomia, a centre for research and experimentation on degrowth in Budapest.
