Fwd: [R&D Barcelona] CFP - POLLEN 2026: Real-Existing Degrowth (RED): How to study degrowth in real life and why it matters

[Giorgos]

fyi

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Angelos Varvarousis <aggel...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 9, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Subject: [R&D Barcelona] CFP - POLLEN 2026: Real-Existing Degrowth (RED): How to study degrowth in real life and why it matters
To:  

Dear Colleagues, 

We are pleased to invite you to submit a paper for the panel "Real-Existing Degrowth (RED): How to study degrowth in real life and why it matters", which is part of the POLLEN Conference 2026 in Barcelona, taking place from June 29 to July 3. DEADLINE for Submissions on 5 December 2025.   

REAL EXISTING DEGROWTH (RED) describes and analyses various contemporary territorial constellations that resist, adapt to, or live well in the absence of economic growth through tentative unfolding across multiple scales. By “real existing,” we aim to distinguish between idealised future transition scenarios of degrowth and actually existing—contradictory and messy—constellations that are akin to, and speak to, degrowth. We understand degrowth transitions as context-specific and bounded by space and time, thereby complementing more universalistic approaches prevalent in degrowth literature, such as DLSs, ecological macro-economic models, and policy proposals.

The RED framework and research agenda aim to ground degrowth in the situated messiness of the actual world, helping to move from abstract thinking about degrowth to seeing it in real life. It enables systematic, comparative research on degrowth processes across scales and geographies, from remote islands and shrinking cities to post-extractivist regions and planned ecosocialist economies. By grounding degrowth in real territories rather than abstract futures, it offers diagnostic and prognostic insights into how alternative modes of living, producing, and governing emerge and endure within a growth-dominated world. Finally, the RED framework aspires to foster our creativity and imagination towards a multiplicity of degrowth futures. 

We invite contributions from various fields, including human geography, ethnography, social ecology, ecological economics, law, planning, and sociology. Proposals from the Global South are particularly envouraged to apply. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches can fit. 

Leading questions:

-  How do your empirical cases relate to degrowth in terms of its material conditions, regulatory and organisational characteristics, and cultural elements? 

- How do territorial constellations akin to degrowth come into life? 
- How do RED constellations resist the subsumption into the regime of capitalist economic growth, and how do they reproduce within a growth-dominated economy?  

- How can tentative REDs scale deep, up, and out?    

- What methods are more suitable for studying REDs?  

To submit your paper, please go to this link, choose the PO68 Panel, then click "propose paper" (it is at the end of the text, needs prior subscription to POLLEN), and follow the steps in the platform.    

Sincerely, 

Angelos Varvarousis, on behalf of the REDs collective. 

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Dr Angelos Varvarousis Ramon y Cajal Researcher - Autonomous University of Barcelona Research & Degrowth (RnD) Director: Master's on "Degrowth: Ecology, Economics, Policy"

Tel: (+30) 6944391369 & (+34) 630120969          Books: Liminal Commons, The (Un)common Planner - To whom does Athens belong?, Εγχειρίδιο Συμμετοχικού Σχεδιασμού για Μικρά Νησιά, Διαδρομές Εξόδου από την Κρίση   Special Issues: Urbanizing degrowth: towards a radical spatial degrowth agenda for future cities Recent papers: Transitioning to Postgrowth Cities, Beyond the Urban Shift: Towards a Relational Degrowth Spatial Politics, Southern thought, islandness and real-existing degrowth in the Mediterranean. Profile here with more publications and opinion articles - freely available

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[Richard Rosen]

The problem is, given the acceleration that is occurring in climate change as clearly documented in the attached report being handed out at COP 30 in Brazil, degrowth is too little and too late to prevent most dire impacts of climate change. We should try it anyway, but one should not exaggerate its possible benefits for the future. --- Rich Rosen

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[Peter Victor]

If, following Herman Daly, degrowth is understood as a reduction in the physical scale of the economy, then it is essential for at least moderating the effects of climate change and other symptoms of overshoot.

Peter

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