After joining the Organizing for Degrowth Network (ODN), a collective aiming to help unite the global degrowth movement into a coherent structure, I decided to see how many degrowth-related groups were out there to take stock of the movement.
I quickly realised there were many more than I expected and decided to add them to a spreadsheet with their details (name, location, contact info, social media, newsletters, etc.). This was quite the endeavour. Each click of a group’s website brought me more and more entries; the Spanish and Italian groups were an entire evening by themselves!
As I continued working with the ODN and the degrowth conferences and assemblies became more relevant, I decided to simplify things and add info on those for easy reference. After that, I was on a roll with too much steam to stop.
I reached out to Tim Parrique, whom I knew had a lot of degrowth info stored, and with his help, I started the “Papers, Books and News” sections. I then made several playlists on Spotify and YouTube to merge all the degrowth videos, podcasts, animations, documentaries and lectures I could find and made the “Media” section.
I sent it out to a small batch of folks, and someone reached out, saying they wanted to work together and create a directory of degrowth advocates in different fields to help folks connect. I also got tons of responses, adding more literature and other groups.
In the end, the database consists of:
- Groups (A staggering 240+ Degrowth-related groups around the world!)
- People (A community directory where 86 people have so far filled out this survey with their details)
- Policies (400+ degrowth policies, as seen in Fitzpatrick et al.)
- Papers (Over 600 academic papers on degrowth – more coming soon)
- Media (40+ documentaries, playlists of podcasts, lectures and panels in 7+ languages)
- Books (Almost 500 books related to degrowth ideas in ~28 languages)
- News (50+ News articles on degrowth in 4 languages)
- Education (~40 Degrowth Masters, Fellowships, Bachelors, Courses, Summers Schools, Certificates, Workshops, etc.)
- Conferences (Details on 20+ Conferences about degrowth/post-growth)
- Assemblies (Details on the 4 International Degrowth Assemblies)
This was sent to the Degrowth World Mailing List to celebrate World Degrowth Day. I received a flood of responses with suggestions, media and literature in Turkish, Danish, Dutch, Serbian and more!
It seems people have found this helpful, and I hope it helps organise our movement better. This will be a living spreadsheet, constantly updated and hopefully move to a website to increase accessibility; if you want to keep it handy, bookmark it on your browser (how to make a bookmark).
Now I want to ask a small favour from you. If you have any relevant information to add, please reach out (arellanojp[at]gmail.com)! The more comprehensive it is, the more valuable it will be for everyone, especially if you have literature in other languages.
You can access The Degrowth Database here.
JP Arellano is an activist striving for revolutionary social-ecological transformation. He is currently studying for a master’s degree in Degrowth, Political Ecology and Environmental Justice at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Aside from socio-political strategy, his interests include propaganda/narrative control, ending unequal exchange, and international degrowth organising. You can write to him at arellanojp13@gmail.com or on Twitter @JP__Arellano