Degrowth in agrarian and fisheries studies

Degrowth is an activist slogan and a new academic concept that challenges the obsession with economic growth as the dominant development paradigm. Degrowth proponents seek a democratically led redistributive downscaling of economic production and consumption in industrialized countries to move towards environmental sustainability, social justice and well-being. Agriculture and food systems are important topics in degrowth debates, yet only few studies have addressed them systematically from a degrowth perspective. Fisheries, a crucial but sometimes forgotten sector in food studies, entered the debates recently under the term blue degrowth. This chapter provides an overview of how a degrowth perspective applies in agriculture, fisheries and food studies by reviewing some of the ongoing debates. Common concerns as well as complementary perspectives exist between scholars of degrowth and critical agrarian studies, which form a fertile ground for further dialogue. © A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels and Ben M. McKay 2021.