AnalysisDiscursive Synergies for a ‘Great Transformation’ Towards Sustainability: Pragmatic Contributions to a Necessary Dialogue Between Human Development, Degrowth, and Buen Vivir
Section snippets
Introduction: Ecological Economics and Development
Ecological Economics (hereinafter EE) has been broadly called the “science of sustainability” (Costanza, 1991). Since the mid-1980s when a society and a journal were founded, EE scholars have been advocating a necessary dialogue between natural sciences and social sciences, more precisely, between economics and ecology. Following this multidisciplinary perspective, the EE community hesitantly engaged the debate on sustainable development (hereinafter SD)1
Setting the Scene: a Critical Analysis of Development
The notion of development did long enjoy a virtually unquestioned legitimacy since its debut in the political jargon (attributed to US President Truman's inaugural speech in 1949): from Rostow's ‘stages of economic growth’, through Dependency Theory and Endogenous Development, up to ‘sustainable development’, all have hailed the idea of development as the promised land of all historical trajectories.
Decades after the notion of ‘development’ spread around the globe, the vast majority of the
Human Development
The ideas of HD and more precisely of the Capability Approach (hereafter CA) have been gradually introduced to EE in the mid 2000's (Ballet et al., 2013; i.e. Lehtonen, 2004; Pelenc and Ballet, 2015; Sneddon et al., 2006). The fundamental question is whether the CA can offer suitable theoretical and ethical foundations (in particular, its idea of justice) for a great transformation towards global sustainability.
Ideas of Human Development (HD)6
Transformation Discourses
From the perspective of their content, what Escobar calls ‘discourses of transformation’ are not a novelty of the 21st Century; they are rather part of the long search for and practice of alternative ways of living, forged in the furnace of humanity's struggle for emancipation and enlightenment. What is remarkable about these alternative proposals, however, is that despite the fact that they typically arise from traditionally marginalized groups (often majorities rather than minorities within
Discursive Cross-pollination and Synergic Engagement Among Discourses
Having reviewed the three discourses HD, BV, and DG, this section seeks to assess the knowledge-gain and socio-political leverage that each discourse offers, on the one hand, and their blind spots and weaknesses (or ‘Achilles heels’), on the other. This will help pave the way towards understanding what can (and what cannot) be expected from each of the discourses as a contribution towards a “Great Transformation”, and how they could potentially fertilize and be articulated with each other.
Further Pragmatic Considerations Towards a Fruitful Dialogue Between BV, DG, and HD
The three discourses under consideration carry diverse symbolic and material markers which stem from their respective socio-cultural contexts of emergence: they are to be seen as situated discursive productions. The obstacles that transformative discourses face are not to be located mainly in a lack of conceptual or analytical clarity, but rather in the particularities of diverse geo-historical contexts and contingent moments, with their varying political and socio-cultural connectivity points (
Conclusion
This article is meant to contribute to an emerging research agenda on the question: How can complementarities among different transformation discourses be made fertile towards a global socio-ecological transition? (Acosta, 2014; Brand, 2015; Escobar, 2015, 2011; Kothari et al., 2015). This involves envisioning pathways towards a pluriverse, “a world in which many worlds fit” (Demaria and Kothari, 2017).
In the introduction to this article we provocatively argued that while the EE community has
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Joan Martinez-Alier for his uncompromising yet constructive critique of our text. We are also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their supportive and useful feedback.
Adrian E. Beling acknowledges the financial support of Paul + Maria Kremer Foundation and Julien Vanhulst acknowledges financial support from FONDECYT Project No. 1160186 (CONICYT - Chile).
Federico Demaria acknowledges the support of the European Research Council for the EnvJustice project (GA 695446) and
References (103)
- et al.
Environment, justice and the capability approach
Ecol. Econ.
(2013) In defence of degrowth
Ecol. Econ.
(2011)The environmental-social interface of sustainable development: capabilities, social capital, institutions
Ecol. Econ.
(2004)Sustainable development: a critical review
World Dev.
(1991)- et al.
Weak comparability of values as a foundation for ecological economics
Ecol. Econ.
(1998) - et al.
Strong sustainability, critical natural capital and the capability approach
Ecol. Econ.
(2015) - et al.
Collective capability and collective agency for sustainability: a case study
Ecol. Econ.
(2015) - et al.
Crisis or opportunity? Economic degrowth for social equity and ecological sustainability. Introduction to this special issue
- et al.
Sustainable development in a post-Brundtland world
Ecol. Econ.
(2006) - et al.
Buen Vivir: emergent discourse within or beyond sustainable development?
Ecol. Econ.
(2014)
Sustainability in Latin America: an analysis of the academic discursive field
Environ. Dev.
Poscrecimiento y posextractivismo: dos caras de una misma transformación cultural
The Deep Green Alternative: Debating Strategies of Transition (No. 14a)
Concepts and measures of agency
Studying discourse innovations: the case of the indigenous movement in Ecuador
Hist. Soc. Res.
Maldevelopment: Anatomy of a Global Failure
Socially sustainable degrowth as a social–ecological transformation: repoliticizing sustainability
Sustain. Sci.
The democratic legitimacy of global governance after Copenhagen
Aportes para una genealogía glocal del Buen Vivir
Doss. Econ. Sin Front.
The Sustainability of Democracy on Limits to Growth, the Post-democratic Turn and Reactionary Democrats
Degrowth und Post-Extraktivismus: Zwei Seiten einer Medaille?
Sozial-ökologische Krise und imperiale Lebensweise. Zu Krise und Kontinuität kapitalistischer Naturverhältnisse
Re-reading Amartya Sen From the Andes: Exploring the Ethical Contributions of Indigenous Philosophies
Empowering Development: Capabilities and Latin American Critical Traditions
L'institution imaginaire de la société
The climate of history: four theses
Crit. Inq.
Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability
Post-democracy, Themes for the 21st Century
El pensamiento sobre el Buen Vivir. Entre el indigenismo, el socialismo y el postdesarrollismo
Rev. CLAD Reforma Democr.
Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era
Indigenous cosmopolitics in the Andes: conceptual reflections beyond “politics”
Cult. Anthropol.
The Post-Development Dictionary agenda: Paths to the pluriverse
Third World Q.
What is degrowth? From an activist slogan to a social movement
Environ. Values
The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses
Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World
Sustainability: design for the pluriverse
Development
Degrowth, postdevelopment, and transitions: a preliminary conversation
Sustain. Sci.
Interpretive affinities: the constitutionalization of rights of nature, Pacha Mama, in Ecuador
J. Environ. Policy Plan.
Más allá del desarrollo la buena vida
Cuad. Trab. Sobre El Desarro.
Socioecological Transitions and Global Change: Trajectories of Social Metabolism and Land Use
The Entropy Law and the Economic Process
Buen Vivir: Germinando alternativas al desarrollo
América Lat. En Mov.
Sustainability and Wellbeing: Human Scale Development in Practice
Growth Fetish
Environmental Sociology
Sustainable development: mapping different approaches
Sustain. Dev.
Agency and Empowerment: A Proposal for Internationally Comparable Indicators (No. Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative)
Cited by (68)
Degrowth and the Global South: The twin problem of global dependencies
2023, Ecological EconomicsInnovations in Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Tackling local and global challenges in cities
2022, Journal of Cleaner ProductionDeepening democracy for the governance toward just transitions in agri-food systems
2022, Environmental Innovation and Societal TransitionsWild infrastructure
2022, Current Opinion in Environmental SustainabilityCitation Excerpt :These Indigenous philosophies emerge from very different cultural and political contexts but include a number of shared characteristics: a critique of linear models of Western/settler-colonial development; rejection of the priority role given to economic growth and development; and the encouragement and inclusion of a diverse range of radical approaches to community participation, rights and aspirations. These principles are not fixed doctrines but are instead regenerative and constantly being negotiated and transformed by the communities that engage with them [1•,2•,9•,13•,15•,34•,49,55•]. Buen Vivir for example is a broad philosophy and movement which emphasizes community well-being, reciprocity, solidarity, and harmony with Pachamama (Mother Earth).