Degrowth is the literal translation of ‘décroissance’, a French word meaning reduction. Launched by activists in 2001 as a challenge to growth, it became a missile word that sparks a contentious debate on the diagnosis and prognosis of our society. ‘Degrowth’ became an interpretative frame for a new (and old) social movement where numerous streams of critical ideas and political actions converge. It is an attempt to re-politicise debates about desired socio-environmental futures and an example of an activist-led science now (...) consolidating into a concept in academic literature. This article discusses the definition, origins, evolution, practices and construction of degrowth. The main objective is to explain degrowth's multiple sources and strategies in order to improve its basic definition and avoid reductionist criticisms and misconceptions. To this end, the article presents degrowth's main intellectual sources as well as its diverse strategies (oppositional activism, building of alternatives and political proposals) and actors (practitioners, activists and scientists). Finally, the article argues that the movement's diversity does not detract from the existence of a common path. (shrink)

L’autore propone una mappa delle rappresentazioni della democrazia che non ricalca le suddivisioni delle scuole politiche tradizionali ma che cerca piuttosto di cogliere al di là dei fon­damenti ideologici la specifica posizione epistemologica e psicologica assunta dall’osservatore nei confronti della democrazia e dei regimi esistenti. Emergono dunque dieci possibili rap­pre­sentazioni della democrazia che possiamo suddividere in tre macro­ap­proc­ci: un approccio statico che comprende un filone apologetico e un filone di disincanto; un approccio conflittuale che comprende un filone spirituale, un filone (...) critico e un filone agonistico; un approccio di­namico che comprende un filone evolutivo, un filone involutivo, un filone di radicalizzazione, ­un fi­lone di trasformazione, un filone di oltrepassamento. La proposta è dun­que quella di in­crociare gli sguardi e integrare, soppesandoli uno per uno, questi diversi punti di vista, piuttosto che assumere unilateralmente uno di essi.The author offers a map of the representations of democracy, which does not reproduce the subdivision of the traditional political schools; on the con­trary, it tries to go beyond the ideological foundations and to catch the spe­cific epistemological and psychological position assumed by the ob­ser­ver as regards democracy and the existent regimes. Therefore the article pro­poses ten possible representation of democracy, which can be sub­di­vi­ded into three macro approaches: a static approach, with an apologetic trend and a disenchanted one; an adversarial approach, with three different trends ; a dynamic approach, with an e­volutionary, an involutional, a radicalization, a transformation and an ex­ceeding trend. The article suggests to cross the different views and to in­tegrate all these perspectives, evaluating them carefully, instead of fully as­suming only one of them. (shrink)