Suchergebnisse

Abstract Harmful environmental consequences of growth have been rigorously documented and widely publicized throughout the past half-century. Yet, the quantity of matter and energy used by human economies continues to increase by the minute, while governments and businesses continue to promise and to prioritize further economic growth. Such a paradox raises questions about how we humans change course. This introduction to a Special Section offers a new theoretical approach to change, together with glimpses of adaptations underway around the world. It directs attention away from individual decision-making and toward systems of culture and power through which socialized humans and socioecological worlds are (re)produced, sustained and adapted. Potential for transformative change is found in habitual practices through which skills, perspectives, denials and desires are viscerally embodied, and in cultural systems (economic, religious, gender and other) that govern those practices and make them meaningful. Case studies reviewed illuminate diverse communities acting to maintain old and to forge new moral and material worlds that prioritize wellbeing, equity and sustainability rather than expansion. This article endeavors to galvanize change by conceptualizing degrowth, by decolonizing worldviews of expansionist myths and values, and by encouraging connections between science and activism, north and south. Key words: degrowth, transition, climate change, socioecological systems

Abstract Harmful environmental consequences of growth have been rigorously documented and widely publicized throughout the past half-century. Yet, the quantity of matter and energy used by human economies continues to increase by the minute, while governments and businesses continue to promise and to prioritize further economic growth. Such a paradox raises questions about how we humans change course. This introduction to a Special Section offers a new theoretical approach to change, together with glimpses of adaptations underway around the world. It directs attention away from individual decision-making and toward systems of culture and power through which socialized humans and socioecological worlds are (re)produced, sustained and adapted. Potential for transformative change is found in habitual practices through which skills, perspectives, denials and desires are viscerally embodied, and in cultural systems (economic, religious, gender and other) that govern those practices and make them meaningful. Case studies reviewed illuminate diverse communities acting to maintain old and to forge new moral and material worlds that prioritize wellbeing, equity and sustainability rather than expansion. This article endeavors to galvanize change by conceptualizing degrowth, by decolonizing worldviews of expansionist myths and values, and by encouraging connections between science and activism, north and south. Key words: degrowth, transition, climate change, socioecological systems

Residents in rural Yucatan, Mexico, have experienced dramatic employment changes from one generation to the next: most older men are farmers, while young men work in manufacturing and services. Young women engage informal employment much more than their mothers. We examine several factors originating outside the territory,including international markets and Mexican public policies, to see how they interact with social, political and cultural processes within the territory in the development of these occupational transformations. Attention to the role gender plays in external factors as well as in territorial processes drives our analysis of a key territorial process: the implementation of national legislation for sustainable rural development. ; Los cambios generacionales ocurridos en el empleo en un territorio de Yucatán en México son dramáticos: la mayoría de los hombres mayores son agricultores, mientras que los jóvenes han ingresado masivamente a la industria manufacturera y los servicios. Las jóvenes se han involucrado en el empleo formal mucho más que sus madres. examinamos varios elementos exógenos al territorio, entre ellos movimientos del mercado internacional y políticas públicas mexicanas, para ver cómo estos interactúan con los procesos endógenos –sociales, políticos, culturales– en el desarrollo de las transformaciones ocupacionales documentadas. Nuestro análisis pone énfasis en aspectos de género que están en juego entre los factores exógenos como también en los procesos endógenos, ejemplificado en un proceso territorial ilustrativo: la implementación de la legislación nacional para el desarrollo rural sustentable.