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In this paper I argue that focusing on work time reduction as a shared interest between global North and global South socio-environmental movements would contribute to increase sympathy for degrowth in the global South. In order to achieve that, the first challenge is to coherently incorporate work time reduction in the South into the degrowth framework. Currently in academic literature, most of the calls for work time reduction in a degrowth context focus on the global North and disregard the global South. As an attempt to contribute to this matter, I explore some of the limits and premises of different positions found in the academic literature about work time reduction from a degrowth perspective, point to some contradictions and sketch some recommendations on how to overcome them.

Author(s): Gabriel Trettel-Silva

Publication date: 31. 5. 2020

This chapter presents and discusses the mapping of a decade of international academic literature on degrowth. This debate is primarily concerned with criticizing growth as a social objective, that is, a socioeconomic system based on a logic of unlimited growth. The international academic repercussion of the debate around this theme occurred from the 2000s onwards due to the dissemination of the term in English (degrowth) in international academic journals. The mapping was performed considering the Scopus database and English search terms (i.e. degrowth or de-growth). The analysis of the 276 identified documents indicates the concentration of articles in multidisciplinary areas, especially in ecological economics and environmental science. We also point to the prevalence of authors from institutions in the global North and low participation of the South in this debate.

Author(s): Gabriel Trettel-Silva, Sylmara Gonçalves Dias

Publication date: 2020