Schedule 9th International Degrowth Conference

Communicating degrowth requires us to articulate abstract theory in a way that makes sense of everyday practices. In this paper I use autoethnography to show how contemporary debates in value theory can guide degrowth activism.

The question of what value is and how it is produced is hotly debated in ecological economics (Hornborg, 2022; Pirgmaier, 2021; Røpke, 2021). This debate connects to key conceptual and strategic questions about links between degrowth and Marxism (Akbulut, 2021). Likewise, the question of what gets valued has been used to make connections between degrowth and feminist economics (Dengler and Strunk, 2017). These debates are valuable, but often abstract, and it can be hard to see their implications for activism.

In this paper I use an autoethnographic approach (Ellis et al., 2011) to ground abstract theoretical discussions on value theory in my everyday practices navigating capitalism and attempting to pre-figure a degrowth economy. I provide ‘thick’ descriptions (Gibson-Graham, 2014) of my participation in different production processes: a voluntary organisation, a trade union, formal employment, and household production. I describe the motivations behind and the experiences of taking part in each of these productive forms, detailing the similarities (the tedium of administrative work, camaraderie, pressure, moments of joy, moments of fear) and differences (in motivations, the social relations of the product, the level of autonomy, the scale of production). I then use value theories to evaluate how each of these activities contributes (or not) to the subversion of capitalism and the development of degrowth.

References
Akbulut, B., 2021. Degrowth. Rethink. Marx. 33, 98–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2020.1847014
Dengler, C., Strunk, B., 2017. The Monetized Economy Versus Care and the Environment: Degrowth Perspectives On Reconciling an Antagonism. Fem. Econ.
Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., Bochner, A.P., 2011. Autoethnography: An Overview. Forum Qual. Sozialforschung Forum Qual. Soc. Res. 12. https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589
Gibson-Graham, J.K., 2014. Rethinking the Economy with Thick Description and Weak Theory. Curr. Anthropol. 55, S147–S153. https://doi.org/10.1086/676646
Hornborg, A., 2022. Why ecological economics should not adopt Marxian value theory. Ecol. Econ. 193, 107334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107334
Pirgmaier, E., 2021. The value of value theory for ecological economics. Ecol. Econ.
Røpke, I., 2021. From value to valuation and appropriation. A comment on Pirgmaier’s paper “The value of value theory for ecological economics.” Ecol. Econ. 187, 107102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107102

Info

Day: 2023-08-30
Start time: 17:30
Duration: 00:15
Room: ZV-KC-2
Type: Paper Presentation
Theme: Communicating degrowth within a consumerist common sense

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