ABSTRACT
This chapter appears in the Routledge Handbook of Degrowth (2025). The particularity of the degrowth movement in Italy is its early beginnings, just after the invention of the term in France; its rapid and distorted entrance into the mainstream political debate through the populist Five Star Movement; and its co-evolution as a social movement and an academic debate. Two associations have characterised the Italian degrowth movement, the more academic Associazione per la Decrescita (Association for Degrowth) and the more activist Movimento per la Decrescita Felice (Movement for Happy Degrowth), with some differences in theoretical approaches. After a conflictual past, between an academic systemic-political approach and another more focused on voluntary simplicity and lifestyle changes, in recent years the two associations started to collaborate closely. Both associations are in dialogue with a wider network of often localised bottom-up initiatives, related to concepts such as the solidarity economy, and movements of resistance to large-scale infrastructure projects. Recently, initiatives such as a degrowth bike tour, and conferences in Venice and the Italian parliament, created wider networks, the attention of the movement widening to themes such as feminism. Significantly, the climate justice movement has sparked a new wave of interest for degrowth in Italy.
