An Alternative to the 'Development Discourse' in the face of the Ecological Crisis: The Degrowth Movement
Tez Türü: Yüksek Lisans
Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Sosyoloji, Türkiye
Tez Danışmanı: Doç. Dr. Betül Duman Bay
Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2021
Tezin Dili: İngilizce
Özet:
This research tries to assess the importance of degrowth by bringing into focus its emergence in French politics, its intellectual sources, its transformation into a social movement, and its political strategies. The study considers the political project of degrowth in a way of building a post-growth and post-capitalist society. In this study, qualitative method is adopted while it is supplied by the post-political theoretical framework. The new terrain of the social texture has been defined in various ways as post-industrial, postmodern, and post-ecological. Post-politics refers to the decline of establishing an alternative socio-economic future. The concept of post-political is used by Chantal Mouffe in a way of disseappreance of pluralistic social word, by Jacques Rancière for critizing the rallying cries of the end of utopias, and by Slavoj Žižek to examine depoliticization of the economy. In post-political society, consensus politics and techno-managerial solutions are praised. Different imaginaries of alternative futures are silenced. The neoliberal hegemony operates in the post-political conditon and merged with the current development discourse. Continuous economic growth is thought as sole remedy for environmental problems. The planet has come to the edge of a cliff. Sustainable development takes part with the post-political neoliberalism and joins the claim of techno-modernist solutions. To speak of any necessary transformation of society and the imaginary of an alternative socio-environmental future are retired from the scene. The purpose of this study is to examine the Degrowth movement which challenges the post-political condition and the depoliticization strategies of neoliberalism. Degrowth embraces post-development to indicate the existence of alternative social worlds, bioeconomics to argue economic growth is unsustainable, and anti-utilitarianism to tackle modern consumerist culture. It criticizes mainstream economic policy actions as technological solutions, 'sustainable' growth and carbon tax. The movement designs the political strategies of community currencies, work sharing, Nowtopias, public money, and eco-communities to establish an alternative society.