Naslov
COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN THE EJ MOVEMENT AND DEGROWTH ON THE EUROPEAN SEMIPERIPHERY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Autori
Domazet, Mladen ; Ančić, Branko

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
Environmental Justice Conference 2019: Transformative Connections

Mjesto i datum
Norwich, Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo, 02.07.2019. - 04.07.2019

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
environmental justice, degrowth, semiperiphery, activists, semi-structured interviews

Sažetak
Scholars in political ecology and ecological economics argue that environmental destructions, overconsumption and overdevelopment are negatively felt by an increasing number of people. Concurrently, voices for ‘prosperity without growth’ have strengthened and environmental conflicts are worldwide on the rise. There is a broad intellectual and activist aim to foster an alliance between post-growth and ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs), of which it is said that degrowth and environmental justice (EJ) movements have the best potential to interconnect (Akbulut et al. forthcoming). This is to be conceptualized, among others, through a joint materialist foundation of EJ movement and degrowth critique and their concurrent quest for the politico-metabolic reconfiguration of economies. Moreover, the EJ and degrowth are complementary in that degrowth as a theoretical concept has largely failed to connect with a wider social movement whilst EJ lacks a broader theoretical roadmap for its struggles (ibid.). We present the the findings of empirical research concerning the pitfalls and possibilities of such an alliance as understood by prominent Croatian EJ movement leaders (Domazet and Ančić, 2019). We outline the context of the Croatian EJ movement through two specifics – the country’s semiperipheral position in the global world-system and the ecological distribution conflicts (EDCs) characteristic of the post-socialist societal metabolism in Europe. The research explores the theory-practice nexus, materialist vs. post-materialist value base, and the potential of ‘a politico-metabolic reconfiguration’ (ibid.) for the proposed alliance. Our findings indicate a hitherto limited, but positive potential for degrowth to provide a theoretical framework for the semiperipheral EJ movement. Both the EJ movement and degrowth demonstrably share a materialist motivation, but not for reasons of ‘under-development’ of semiperipheral societies. Our analysis concludes that semiperipheral EJ activists are open to (even calling for) a politico-metabolic reconfiguration proposal, though they are presently not aware that a viable reconfiguration strategy is proffered by the degrowth research community. On the European semiperiphery, an alliance between theory and movement would benefit from a clearer explication of such a strategy. In this, European semiperipheral EJ activists express a more readily shared vision with degrowth theory than the EJ activists in the Global South, who see degrowth as Eurocentric, distant and politically lukewarm, despite shared materialism and invocation of greater democratization of development strategies (Rodríguez-Labajos et al., 2019).

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija, Interdisciplinarne društvene znanosti

Napomena
Nastavno na objavljene rezultate istraživanja u Ecological Economics 159.

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