Version 3.2

Concepts of health and illness within the Portuguese degrowth movement

In 2022, the Portuguese Degrowth Network organized a series of events on the 50th anniversary of the report ‘The Limits to Growth’ under the motto ‘Crescer até rebentar?’ (Growing till bursting?). One of the events consisted of an interactive workshop on degrowth, health and care and aimed to stimulate a co-creation process to build critical perspectives collectively.
The main questions that steered the process were: “To what health do we aspire?”, “Is health, rather than complete well-being, a dynamic process that includes happiness, prosperity, physical and mental independence, and active participation in the community?”, “Why is care devalued and invisibilized instead of being assumed as a central dimension in individual and collective life?”, “Should we assume care as an institutionalized service, or is it something more comprehensive?”.
Participants were challenged to think about health and care from a degrowth perspective that focuses on promoting the flourishing of life on the planet, the interests of present and future generations, and the fair sharing of resources within planetary boundaries. After creating shared mind maps about keywords (degrowth, health and care), the facilitators then randomly distributed questions between one online and five onsite working groups and clarified that these were explorative and aimed at feeding doubts rather than achieving proper answers.
In this paper, we present outcomes, issues raised, and disquiets that surfaced when participants were challenged to think beyond an existing system which is focused on individual action and responsibility and only allows for incremental improvements. Drawing on the concept of post-normal science and the need for ‘extended peer communities’, we emphasize - together with workshop participants – that collective critical thinking must transcend hierarchical relationships of current institutions to enable citizens to question science and build the common good.

Info

Day: 2023-09-01
Start time: 12:15
Duration: 00:15
Room: ZV-8-2
Type: Paper Presentation
Theme: Hegemonic worldviews and degrowth horizon

Links:

Concurrent Sessions