The unanticipated pleasures of the future: degrowth, postgrowth and popular cultural economies

Banks, M. (2022) The unanticipated pleasures of the future: degrowth, postgrowth and popular cultural economies. New Formations, 2022(107/08), pp. 12-29. (doi: 10.3898/NewF:107-8.01.2022)

Abstract

A renewed theory of 'degrowth' has recently emerged from different streams of political economy, ecological economics and environmental activism. Yet contemporary degrowth (and post-growth) has yet to develop any credible or inclusive theory of cultural production, art or aesthetics. A key challenge, as I see it, is to generate a progressive degrowth project that can not only more equitably share and sustain scarce resources, but also retain some sense of organised cultural production as a source of different aesthetic, symbolic and communicative needs and desires. This, I would argue, must include tastes and preferences that are rooted in shared and globally extensive forms of popular culture. The aim here, therefore, is to conceive of a degrowth perspective that might begin to imagine forms of genuinely sustainable and organised cultural economy that strive to accommodate and expand (rather than deny or frustrate) the widest array of human needs and desires in any ecologically-challenged future.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Banks, Professor Mark
• Authors: Banks, M.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > Theatre Film and TV Studies
• Journal Name: New Formations
• Publisher: Lawrence and Wishart
• ISSN: 0950-2378
• ISSN (Online): 1741-0789
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 Lawrence Wishart Ltd
• First Published: First published in New Formations 2022(107/08):12-29
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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