Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on degrowth has reinvigorated the limits to growth debate with critical examination of the historical, cultural, social, and political forces that have made economic growth a dominant objective. Here we review studies of economic stability in the absence of growth and of societies that have managed well without growth. We reflect on forms of technology and democracy com-patible with degrowth and discuss plausible openings for a degrowth transition. This dynamic and productive research agenda asks inconvenient questions that sustainability sciences can no longer afford to ignore.

Recent debates within political ecology have motivated new field. In the introduction to this special issue, we vital challenges faced today, and present a new set of studies that respond to these concerns. We conceptualize power as a social relation built on the asymmetrical distribution of resources and risks and locate power in the interactions among, and the processes that constitute, people, places, and resources. Politics, then, are found in the practices and mechanisms through which such power is circulated. The focus here is on politics related to the environment, understood as biophysical phenomena, together with human knowledge and practice. To apply these concepts, we promote multiscale research models that articulate selected ecological phenomena and local social processes, together with regional and global forces and ideas. We also advocate methods for research and practice that are sensitive to relations of difference and power among and within social groups. Rather than dilute ecological dimensions of study, this approach aims to strengthen our ability to account for the dialectical processes through which humans appropriate, contest, and manipulate the world around them.

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 RésuméLes conséquences environnementales négatives de la croissance ont été rigoureusement documentées et largement médiatisées pendant un demi-siècle. Pourtant, la quantité de matière et d'énergie utilisée par les économies humaines continue d'augmenter de minute en minute, tandis que les gouvernements et les entreprises continuent d'accorder la priorité et de promettre une croissance économique accrue. Un tel paradoxe soulève des questions sur la manière dont les humains changent. Cette introduction à une Section Spéciale propose une nouvelle approche théorique au changement, ainsi que des aperçus d'adaptations en cours dans le monde. Elle détourne l'attention de la prise de décision individuelle vers les systèmes de culture et de pouvoir par lesquels les êtres socialisés et les mondes socio-écologiques sont (re)produits, soutenus et adaptés. Une attention particulière est accordée aux pratiques habituelles par lesquelles les compétences, les perspectives, les démentis et les désirs sont viscéralement incarnés, et aux systèmes culturels (économiques, religieux, de genre et autres) qui régissent ces pratiques et les rendent significatives. Les études de cas ont permis d'éclairer les expériences de diverses communautés qui agissent pour préserver l'ancienne et de forger de nouveaux mondes moraux et matériels qui ne sont pas axés sur l'expansion, mais plutôt le bien-être, l'équité et la durabilité. Cet article s'efforce de soutenir le changement en conceptualisant le décroissement; décoloniser les visions du monde à partir de mythes et de valeurs...

this article describes practices and relations of farming, herding, and cooking that produce and reproduce people and places in culture-specific ways in one region of the central Andes. It also explores how these practices have been changing in relation to regional and global processes surrounding agricultural modernization. the study begins with a look at the degradation of steep slopes and the reduced productivity and social value of women who manage these slopes for small livestock grazing and fuel wood collection. Starting with an ethnographic exploration of local practices and relations of difference, the scope widens to encompass asymmetrical relations of exchange at play in markets, migrations, and development projects, and to consider political decisions and policies that contribute to the uneven terrain on which these exchanges take place. implications for environmental management and conservation include methodological options for approaching environmental problems as integrally social and ecological and for considering these problems in multiscale frames of reference that allow us to examine links among local phenomena and regional or global processes.

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