Feature in Degrowth & Strategy

First published on (and last modified on ) about low←tech magazine, feature, degrowth version 2fb920f

Image of the book. Source: https://www.degrowthstrategy.org
Image of the book. Source: https://www.degrowthstrategy.org

Our work on https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com got an extensive discussion in the book Degrowth & Strategy.

In Chapter 13, An overview of strategies for social-ecological transformation in the field of digital technologies and the cases of Low-Tech Magazine and Decidim Nicolas Guenot and Andrea Vetter discuss degrowth’s relation to (digital) technology.

In “This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline”, I mention that the relationship towards technology remains ambivalent within degrowth without really opening up why. I wish I could’ve cited Guenot & Vetter’s chapter instead. It is a valuable contribution to that discussion. Their chapter provides a thorough overview of the dilemmas and issues that technology presents for the degrowth movement. They describe three general approaches: a symbiotic one (the Green New Deal), an accelerationist one and finally a (neo-)luddite approach. It is in that last one that they situate what they describe as an “open source low-tech approach” and where they place the two case studies they discuss, which are https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com and the Decidim project.

Read An overview of strategies for social-ecological transformation in the field of digital technologies and the cases of Low-Tech Magazine and Decidim here (mirror).

Download the entire book on the publisher’s website or see here how to get a phyiscal copy.